KARACHI: An antiterrorism court (ATC) on Tuesday sentenced three men to death on two counts in a case pertaining to kidnapping for ransom of a teenaged student, his murder and setting the body on fire to conceal their crime.
The trio — Shamshair Ali Mirza, Muhammad Salman and Abdul Sattar — were found guilty of kidnapping 12-year-old Shahid Ali for ransom and later murdering him within the jurisdiction of the Saeedabad police station
The ATC-XVI judge, who conducted the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, pronounced his verdict reserved after recording evidence and listening to final arguments from both sides.
The judge noted that the prosecution proved the charge against the accused beyond any reasonable doubt.
He handed down capital punishment to the trio ‘twice’ on two counts — kidnapping for ransom and murder.
The judge also ordered them to pay Rs200,000 each as compensation to the legal heirs of the victim or serve six-month imprisonment on default.
The judge also sentenced them to seven-year imprisonment each in jail for ‘burning’ the body of the victim to destroy the evidence and imposed a fine of Rs100,000 on each convict.
State prosecutor Muhammad Raza argued that accused Shamshair had kidnapped Shahid, a class-II student, when he left home for playing in Sector-17-A on Jan 6, 2020.
His father Muhammad Ali later told the police that he had received a call from the kidnappers, who demanded Rs10 million as ransom for the safe release of his son.
The prosecutor said accused Shamshair Ali, who was already in custody of the Saeedabad police station in connection with an explosives case, during interrogation disclosed that he along with co-accused Abdul Sattar and Salman, had killed the child.
He added that Sattar and Shamshair were neighbours of the victim and doing property business while Salman was their office boy.
He further argued that on the lead of Sattar and Salman, police inspected the house of Shamshair and recovered the clothes, a taveez and a pair of slippers of the abductee from a bathroom, which were duly identified by the complainant.
The prosecutor said that after abducting Ali, the accused had stuffed a piece of cloth in his mouth, tied his hands and feet in an attempt to transport him in a bag in the Salman’s car, which had a fake number plate.
“But the boy died from suffocation. Then the accused persons burnt the body, which was later recovered from a gutter in KDA Scheme-33,” added the prosecutor.
He stated that a medico-legal and chemical analysis identified the body as that of Shahid Ali.
In their statements, recorded under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the accused persons denied the allegations.
Accused Sattar deposed that he was arrested because he was brother-in-law of Shamshair and police had picked him from his house on Jan 1, 2021, adding that he had no criminal record.
Accused Salman deposed that he was not involved in the offence, adding that the Rangers had mercilessly subjected him to torture in custody, but he did not made any confession before the magistrate.
Claiming their innocence, all the accused pleaded the court to acquit them of the alleged false and fabricated charges.
A case was registered under sections 365-A (kidnapping or abducting for extorting property, valuable
security, etc), 302 (premeditated murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender), 203 (giving false information respecting an offence committed) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 25 of the Telegraph Act read with Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 at the Saeedabad police station on the complaint of the victim’s father, Muhammad Ali.
Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2022