Challenging life term may incur death sentence in murder case

ISLAMABAD: Filing an appeal against life imprisonment sentence could become costly for a serial rape and murder accused as an Islamabad High Court (IHC) bench has referred the matter to IHC chief justice with the observation that the offenders may be awarded capital punishment.

The serial rape and murder convict Abrar Ahmed had file an appeal against life imprisonment that was heard by Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the IHC.

The IHC bench, while hearing the case, observed that the convict committed heinous crime and life imprisonment may not be sufficient penalty in this matter. Justice Siddiqui then referred the matter to IHC chief justice with observation that the matter may be placed before a division bench to see if the convict could be awarded death sentence.

Abrar and his girl friend Zahra Mehak were both awarded life imprisonment with a fine of Rs500,000 each for the rape and murder of two young girls Shehzadi and Swera, by the court of sessions judge, Islamabad in August 2015.

According to prosecution, Abrar after raping Shehzadi, burnt her alive with the help of Zahra to wash away the evidence. The convict was a student at National University of Modern Languages in 2011 where he met Zahra.

Zahra was interested in marrying Abrar but he deceived her under a pretext that he was suffering from the AIDS and could not marry her until he recovers from the disease. Abrar told Zahra that he could recover from the fatal disease if she provides him virgin girls. Zahra then provided her with two young girls and one was only 10 years old. The police had recovered the burnt dead body of Shehzadi from a dry gutter in I-9/1.