 The anti-terrorism appellate (ATA) bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) upheld on Wednesday the death sentence of two activists of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) and enhanced to death the life term of a third for killing a director of laboratories of the ministry of defence in 2001.
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Mohammad Shahid Hanif was awarded a life term while Talah Hussain and Khalil Ahmed were handed down the death sentence by Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the Anti-Terrorism Court-III on April 15, 2002. The appellants, who were, according to the prosecution, riding a bike, had shot dead Syed Zafar Hussain, the director laboratories of the ministry of defence, while he was on his way to work from his house in the limits of Gulberg police station on July 30, 2001.
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Safdar Hussain Shah, the director's driver, had identified the accused during the identification parade as well as during the trial. The trial court, on the evidence of Safdar Hussain Shah, who was also an eyewitness to the crime, had convicted all of the accused, but awarded Mohammad Shahid Hanif lesser punishment. The trial court had held that since Mohammad Shahid was driving the bike, he could not have participated in the firing on the car.
| If the bike hadn't been driven, then they would have had to fire on the car from the sidewalk. |
However, the SHC's ATA bench comprising Justice Mohammad Afzal Soomro and Justice Rehmat Hussain Jaferi, rejected this reasoning of the trial judge for awarding a lesser punishment to Mohammad Shahid and enhanced his life term to death while holding that his intention was common to that of the two convicts who were awarded the death sentence. The ATA bench dismissed the appeals of Talah Hussain and Khalil Ahmed and modified the sentence of Mohammad Shahid through a short order, the reason for which was to be recorded later on. |
