KARACHI, Sept 5: The anti-terrorism appellate bench of the Sindh High Court reserved on Thursday judgement on the appeals filed by convicts in the abduction and subsequent murder of a minor girl.
The bench consisted of Justice Roshan Essani and Justice Mujeebullah Siddiqui.
The appellants, Muhammad Javed, Muhammad Siraj, Abdul Raoof and Imran, were given life term by an anti-terrorism court with a fine of Rs100,000 each. Baby Aisha fell victim to their criminal act of kidnapping.
Defence counsel Ashraf Kazi, I.A. Hashmi and Ejaz Khattak concluded their arguments with the prayer for acquittal of the convicts in the abduction for ransom case.
They argued that confessions were stereo-type and not as per rules. The identification parade was defective and confessional statements were not voluntary. In fact, they claimed, it was extracted under duress and after torture. The alleged recovery of bangles and scarf of baby Ayesha, and the place of incident was doubtful as was the case with the last eyewitness.
It was also their contention that no ransom was demanded, and no zina was committed. It was also their contention that even the ATC had no jurisdiction to proceed in the case, therefore conviction should be set aside, and the case should be remanded to a court having jurisdiction.
Counsel for the state and the complainant, Habib Ahmed, AAG, and Mahmood Alam Rizvi, advocate, respectively, argued that as per Ordinance IV/1999, the ATC had the jurisdiction not only in the Act but also in the Schedule as kidnapping and kidnapping for ransom were separate sections. They further argued that the baby girl was under 12 years of age, so as per Schedule the matter was triable by the ATC.
On the point of terrorism and spread of fear in society, they maintained that witnesses and appellants had admitted that the whole night announcement about the missing girl was made from different mosques in Federal B-Area, while 40-50 motorcyclists kept on searching for her the whole night. They whole area was closed for three days. Therefore, they claimed, that the argument of defence counsel on the point of jurisdiction lacked force.
It was their contention that recovery of bangles and scarf had been proved and independent witnesses had seen the appellants taking the girl into the building. They claimed that the motive was also clear. They kidnapped the girl to extract Rs40,000-Rs50,000 from her father.
Appellant Jameel had admitted that he was a former neighbour of the complainant, and he was living in the building adjacent to the building from where the dead body of the baby girl had been recovered. Had the dead body been thrown somewhere else, it would have been difficult to arrest them, counsel for the state and complainants claimed.
In support of their claim that confessions were voluntary, they also referred to pages 31 to 33 of the judgment given by the trial court. Appellants and defence witnesses had admitted in the court in their statements on oath that their confessions were true.
GAS FIELD CASE: A division bench of the Sindh High Court has reserved judgment on a petition in which award to contract a gas processing plant in the Mazarani Gas Development project has been challenged.
The bench comprised Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court, Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad, and Justice Ghulam Rabbani.
Petrosin, a Singapore-based company, had challenged the award of contract to Presson/Descon joint venture companies regarding Mazarani Gas Field Development contract for a gas processing plant.
Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) had invited bids for the project. The petitioner, Petrosin Engineering and Contractors Private Ltd, Presson/Descon, had filed the bid for the said project.
In their petition, the petitioner was represented by Barrister M. Jamil, along with Barrister Shahid Jamil, whereas Deputy Attorney-General Zakir Ahmed appeared on behalf of the ministry of petroleum. Sajid Zahid appeared on behalf of the PPL and Lahore-based Dr Pervez Hassan appeared on behalf of the Joint Venture Companies Presson/Descon.
Barrister M. Jamil argued that since the petitioners were the lowest bidder and had qualified as technically competent, they were illegally refused the contract.
He had prayed that the award of contract to Presson/Descon was on the basis of malafide intention as Descon was owned by Razzak Dawood, the Federal Minister of Commerce and Industries, and his family.