KARACHI: A model court sentenced on Monday a former policeman to life imprisonment for murdering a citizen during a botched armed robbery in 2010.

Waseem Faraz was found guilty of killing Rao Muhammad Akram and wounding his younger brother, Rao Ashraf, for resisting a robbery bid at their shop in Block-2 of Gulshan-i-Iqbal on Nov 12, 2010.

On Monday, Additional District and Sessions Judge Haleem Ahmed of the Model Criminal Trial Court (East) pronounced his verdict reserved earlier after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge handed down life imprisonment to Faraz on the charge of committing premeditated murder and 10-year imprisonment for carrying out an armed robbery.

The court also ordered him to pay Rs600,000 as compensation to the legal heirs of the victim.

The judge observed that the accused was arrested at the place of the incident and his identity was not disputed. “He was a police officer so it can be safely believed that he knew very well as to how to pull the trigger of firearm,” the court remarked.

However, the judge clarified that the prosecution failed to prove any recovery while there were also contradictions and anomalies in the testimonies of the witnesses, thus the accused was not sentenced to death.

The court also handed down seven-year imprisonment to him and ordered to pay a fine of Rs100,000 for wounding the complainant.

State prosecutor Muhammad Ashraf Bhatti argued that accused Waseem, who was duly armed with a deadly weapon, had looted Rs25,000 and mobile phones from complainant Ashraf, his brother Imran and employee Aftab at his shop in the Gulshan-i-Iqbal as his accomplice, Sohail Khan, stayed outside. Then, he proceeded to the adjacent shop of the complainant’s another brother, Akram, who resisted the robbery attempt and tried to overpower the accused.

A case was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 397 (robbery or dacoity, with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt), 324 (attempted murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) at the Gulshan-i-Iqbal police station on the complaint of victim’s brother Rao Ashraf.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2022