KARACHI, April 27: A condemned prisoner, who was scheduled to be hanged on Monday, got on Saturday a one-month lease of life as the president stayed the execution for four weeks.

Judge Arshad Noor Khan who on August 2, 1999 had awarded capital punishment to Shahjahan for murdering Prof Zahid Ali Magsi during robbery, issued on April 23 black warrant for the execution of the sentence.

The judge authorized the jail superintendent to “carry out the sentence in the presence of Ist class magistrate and doctor at Fajr prayers on Monday.”

The jail authorities told Dawn that they received an urgent telegram from the federal authorities stating that “the president has been pleased to stay the execution of the condemned prisoner confined in the Central Prison, Karachi, for a period of four weeks.”

They said the execution had been stayed for a month to provide an opportunity to the family of the convict for reconciliation with the victim’s family.

Besides being condemned to death, Shahjahan, a Bengali-speaking young man, was also sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs25,000 for the injuries inflicted upon the son of the professor, during a bungled robbery in their Gulshan-i-Iqbal house on May 22, 1998.

Shahjahan, with co-accused Imran Tentwala and Kamran Dakait, both absconding, barged into the house of Prof Magsi around four in the morning. The intruders first entered the room of Abid Ali Magsi, one of the three sons of the professor, and held him hostage at gunpoint, after a short struggle with him. As they dragged him out of his room to the living room, his mother, Prof Suraiyya Magsi, followed by her husband, came out of their room. Accused Shahjahan and his accomplices became jittery and opened fire when Mr Magsi, a professor of accountancy at S. M. Arts College, appeared in the living room. Both father and son suffered bullet wounds and were taken to Aga Khan hospital where Prof Magsi died half an hour after his arrival there. He had received a single bullet which went through his chest rupturing his heart, and his son had suffered a bullet wound to his left thigh.

Accused Shahjahan was arrested by police on July 20, 1998, some two months after the incident. The son and the widow of the professor identified the accused before a judicial magistrate. Later on July 22, 1999, both of them identified the accused in the ATC-3 while recording their statements.

Later, Shahjahan moved an appeal against his sentences before the Sindh High Court, which dismissed it on December 23, 1999, and accepted the reference regarding the confirmation of his death sentence.

The accused also preferred an appeal before the Supreme Court, which also dismissed it.

Later, he sent a mercy petition to the President of Pakistan, who also dismissed the petition on April 20.

Shahjahan is the first accused condemned to death by an ATC who was to be hanged.