Forty-four-year-old Javed Malik was hanged at 6.30am in the presence of the victim’s family members. However, the relatives of the condemned prisoner did not turn up. Malik had requested the jail authorities to donate his eyes.
The last implementation of the ‘black warrants’ in Karachi Central Jail was carried out in 2004 when Shaikh Amjad was hanged for killing a young barrister, Shakir Latif. Shaikh, who had also donated his eyes, was the 56th prisoner hanged inside the Central Jail.
Over 10 years ago, on July 21, 1997, in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Javed Malik shot dead young Amir Kakar while extorting Rs500.
The young victim was shot five times by the convict. Malik appealed against the death sentence in the Sindh High Court, but his appeal was rejected on March 5, 1999. Subsequently, the Supreme Court of Pakistan twice rejected his appeal – first on Sept 19, 2004, and then on March 8, 2006.
On January 21, 2008, the president of Pakistan also rejected the clemency appeal following which the Anti-Terrorism Court-III issued the death warrants, which were implemented on Wednesday morning.
Amir Kakar was the son of Ashraf Kakar, a central leader of the Jamhoori Watan Party and former provincial minister of Balochistan. The victim’s father was also present on the jail premises at the time of the hanging but didn’t step out of his car.
Talking briefly to the media, Ashraf Kakar said: “No one could appreciate hanging. I wanted to forgive the culprit. But he was such a person that he would have killed again taking away someone’s son or brother if he was sent back to the streets.”
Amir Kakar’s brother, Sanaullah Kakar, controlling his emotions, said that his brother was shot five times by Javed Malik for just Rs500. “Such a person should be hanged in a public place so that criminal elements could also witness his fate,” he remarked.
Javed Malik’s family had disassociated themselves from him in 1997. A day before the implementation of the court’s orders, no one from his family came to see him.
Earlier, quoting Javed Malik, the jail authorities said that his parents and brother are dead.
Penitence at the gallows?
On the eve of his hanging, Javed requested the jail authorities that his eyes be donated. Similarly, he asked for the disbursement of his belongings among the needy prisoners of the jail.
Rizwan Edhi, chief volunteer of the Edhi Foundation, told Dawn that on Tuesday night, jail authorities contacted them to inform them that the condemned prisoner has requested for the donation of his eyes.
Following the implementation of the black warrants, the body was handed over to the Edhi Foundation.
“We rushed the body to the Spencer Eye Hospital where doctors were already prepared for the procedure,” Rizwan said.
Medical Superintendent of the Spencer Eye Hospital Dr Mashhooduz Zafar said that both the recipients had been registered at the hospital for the last two months.
“We were informed in emergency, but we managed to contact the patients who were available and could come to the hospital on Wednesday,” he said.
Sixty-five-year-old Allah Rakhi, who had a single eye with negligible vision, and Mehboob Alam, a poor farmer from Mirpurkhas who had lost the vision of both eyes, became the recipients of the hanged prisoner’s corneas.
The operations were carried out by a team of doctors including Dr Pervez Sarwar, Dr Khalid Mehmood and Dr Mashhooduz Zafar.
Both the patients were the most deserving cases, the MS said, adding that grafting was performed free of cost and the patients were waived the admission fee as well.
Wednesday’s hanging was the 225th to be carried out during the last five years in the country.
Incidentally Shaikh Amjad’s eyes were also donated to two persons.
One recipient was Mohammad Nisar, a gas welder who had lost an eye in a cylinder blast incident. Following the grafting of the cornea, Nisar joined the Edhi Foundation and is working with the welfare organization ever since.
The other recipient was a girl residing in New Karachi. In December 2007, Najmus Seher was married and is leading a normal life.
