KARACHI, Aug 6: The murderer of Prof Zahid Ali Magsi was hanged on early Wednesday morning in Central Prison, Karachi, minutes after he failed to seek pardon from the victim’s family.
His body was handed over to his father-in-law around 5:50am.
The 32-year-old Bengali-speaking man, hanged for killing the professor, who was brother-in-law of a judge of an accountability court for Karachi division, at his Gulshan-i-Iqbal house during a bungled robbery in May 1998, was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court on August 2, 1999.
The jail authorities said moments before Shahjahan, married with two minor children, was taken to the gallows, he wished to meet the victim’s family to seek pardon from them. When contacted by phone, the Magsi family refused to talk about the matter.
Shahjahan’s parents are in Bangladesh. His father-in-law, Noorul Islam, and his wife and children held the last meeting with him at the prison on Monday.
The jail authorities said before this a condemned prisoner, Maqsood Ali Khan, was hanged in September 1999 for the murder of his relative.
They said there were 143 condemned prisoners in the prison, with their appeals pending before courts.
Shahjahan’s appeals were rejected by the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court. His mercy plea to the President was also rejected.
Shahjahan, with his two accomplices, Imran Tentwala and Kamran Dakait — both absconding — had barged into the house of Magsis around 4am. The intruders first entered the room of Abid Ali Magsi, one of the three sons of the professor, and held him hostage at gunpoint, after a short struggle with him. As they dragged him out of his room to the living room, his mother, Prof Suraiyya Magsi, followed by her husband, came out of their room. The jittery bandits opened fire when Mr Magsi, a professor of accountancy at S. M. Arts College, appeared in the living room. Both the father and the son suffered bullet injuries and were taken to Aga Khan hospital where Prof Magsi died half an hour after his arrival there. He had received a single bullet which went through his chest rupturing his heart.