KARACHI, Oct 13: A district and sessions court on Monday sentenced a police constable to death for killing his wife and convicted his two brothers for helping him in the crime.

The additional district and sessions judge South, Sultan Mohammad Awan, awarded capital punishment to Mohammad Aslam and five-year rigorous imprisonment each to his two brothers, Mohammad Ashraf and Mansoor.

The main accused, Aslam, has already been in jail for the past eight years. However, his two brothers were granted bail after spending two years in jail. They were also present in the court on Monday when the judge pronounced the verdict.

The police rearrested the two brothers and sent them to the prison for serving the remainder of their sentence (three years).

The court convicted the three brothers after public prosecutor Abdul Maroof proved his case in the court.

The former police constable had killed his wife, Naheed, with the connivance of his brothers on June 7, 2000.

The court tried the accused under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to the prosecution, police found a two-day-old body of a woman in a locked house in Kalri police limits on June 9, 2000.

The victim was identified as Naheed and her father Faqeer Mohammad lodged an FIR at Kalri police station against his son-in-law, Aslam, and his two brothers, who were also living in the same house, for murdering his daughter.

On June 14, 2000 Aslam and his two brothers surrendered themselves to police. Police also recovered his seven-month-old daughter.

At that time, the accused told the police that his wife was trying to commit suicide and she had his pistol in her hand when he intervened and tried to stop her. However, in the struggle, he snatched the pistol but accidentally its butt hit her head causing her instant death.

He said that he had no option but to leave the body in the house and escape.

However, the woman’s father told the police that two days before the incident, Naheed had come to his house and informed him that her husband had behaved badly and wanted to kill her.

It was also alleged that the crime was committed at the instigation of the two brothers of Aslam.

The public prosecutor also argued that it was not a case of suicide as the autopsy report revealed that Naheed had been hit by a blunt instrument many times and the police had also recovered blood-soaked clothes of Aslam.

The prosecution presented total nine witnesses. The prosecution witnesses were the father and two brothers of the deceased woman, an investigating officer, three residents of the same area who stated that they had seen a confused Aslam along with his infant daughter on the day of the murder, a medico-legal officer who had conducted a post-mortem on the deceased woman and a chemical examiner who had deposed that the blood stains found on Aslam’s clothes were of his wife’s.

The prosecution had prayed to the court to award the death sentence to Aslam.