KARACHI, Sept 11 A sessions court sentenced on Friday five men to three years in prison in a robbery case.

The court found Mohammad Farooq, Ghulam Mohammad Sarwar, Abdul Wahab, Arshad Shahzad and Mohammad Ibrahim guilty of committing a robbery in the house of Noor Mohammad within the remit of the Gulistan-i-Jauhar police station in Aug 2006.

The court also sentenced a jeweller, Mirza Ahmed Baig, to eight months in prison on charges of buying the stolen jewellery.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (east) Sanaullah Khan Ghouri pronounced his verdict after recording the testimony of prosecution witnesses and final arguments from both sides.

The court in its verdict observed that the prosecution has successfully established it case against all the accused persons beyond a shadow of a doubt by putting up satisfactory evidence before the court. The witnesses have fully implicated the accused in the case and documentary evidence corroborated the same, it added.

According to the prosecution, the accused broke into the house of complainant Noor Mohammad in the Gulistan-i-Jauhar area on Aug 14, 2006. They took the family hostage at gunpoint and looted gold jewellery and other valuables. However, the police arrested three accused - Farooq, Ghulam Sarwar and Ibrahim - a couple of days after the incident. The stolen jewellery was recovered from a jeweller's shop on a lead given by the suspects. Later, the jeweller was released on bail. The co-accused, Arshad and Abdul Wahab, were held on Aug 9, 2007. A case (FIR 273/06) was registered against the accused under Sections 392 (punishment for robbery) and 411(dishonestly receiving stolen property) of the penal code at the Gulistan-i-Jauhar police station.

The court also extended the benefit of Section 382-B (period of detention to be considered while awarding sentence of imprisonment) of the criminal procedure code to the convicts. The court issued release orders of convicts Farooq, Ghulam Sarwar and Ibrahim since the length of their stay in prison as undertrails exceeded the sentence handed down. The jeweller, Arshad and Abdul Wahab were sent to prison to serve out the remainder of their sentences.