The Sindh High Court (SHC) has set aside the death sentence of a man while commuted the life imprisonment of a woman to 15 years in prison in her spouse murder case.
Ghulam Nabi was sentenced to death while Asma was sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court of District West for murdering a man, Shah Zaman, husband of Asma, in the Peerabad area.
According to the prosecution, Asma and Nabi killed Zaman by strangling him after giving him some intoxicant. A division bench of the high court headed by Justice Omar Sial heard the arguments of the counsel and observed that what exactly had happened between the night of November 4 and 5, 2019, remained vague throughout the trial.
The SHC observed that the prosecution witnesses and the appellant presented different versions in their statement with regard to the murder of Zaman. The high court observed that the sons of appellant Asma had deposed that Nabi came along with other accomplices and electrocuted Zaman and absolved their mother of any wrongdoing.
The bench observed that both these witnesses were declared hostile by the prosecution and it was evident from the reading of the children’s testimonies that they had testified under pressure and the basic details they gave did not reconcile with the prosecution’s case.
The SHC observed that Asma recorded her Section 164 CrPC statement on November 11, 2019, stating that she had mixed sleeping pills in milk that Zaman drank and then killed him. She then called Nabi who connected a wire with the power supply and electrocuted Zaman. However, during the trial, Asma retracted the confession, the high court observed.
The SHC observed that police did not make any recovery from the house of the deceased, including the wire used for electrocution or any item used for strangling. It observed that the pistol appellant Nabi allegedly carried was also not recovered and the identity of his accomplice was also not discovered by the police.
The high court observed that a telephone and broken SIM card that Asma used to call Nabi were found, but no call data records or forensic analysis were conducted on them by the investigation.
The bench observed that contrary to Asma’s confession, no intoxicant was found in Zaman’s body while no record was produced from the Civil Hospital, Jacobabad, where the deceased’s body was initially taken for a post-mortem examination.
The SHC observed that the motive for the murder also remained unproven and unclear. The SHC observed that a witness, Ahmed, son of the appellant Asma, had said that Nabi would torture Asma’s younger sister by burning her with cigarettes and he also testified that his father Zaman had an illicit affair with Nabi’s sister. The high court observed that the witness had also indicated in cross-examination that the appellants had illegal relations.
The SHC observed that Asma in her confessional statement had stated her abuse by Zaman as the reason for killing him. The bench observed that another possible motive was explored by the prosecution when another witness, a relative of Zaman, stated that Asma’s father and Zaman had an ongoing dispute regarding the sale of an immovable property that Zaman owned, but that was sold by Asma’s father.
The high court observed that the witness categorically testified that it was Asma’s father who had falsely implicated Nabi to save himself from being an accused. The SHC observed that no evidence was produced at trial to prove, support or corroborate any of the motives or reasons put forward by the prosecution while the post-murder events also remained ambiguous.
The high court observed that the only evidence against Nabi came from the children and Asma’s retracted confession, which was not of such a quality to convict Nabi. The SHC observed that a lot of suspicious activity involving Asma and her family, particularly her brothers and father, had taken place, and Asma’s chosen silence on the matter did indeed raise concerns about her role in this incident.
The bench observed that the prosecution failed to establish its case against Nabi beyond a reasonable doubt and set aside the death sentence awarded to him by the trial court. The high court, however, observed that Asma could not go guilt free from the incident and looking the case holistically, it appeared that the conviction of Asma could be changed from the Section 302(2) of the Pakistan Penal Code to the Section 302(c). The SHC dismissed the appeal of Asma but modified her sentence from life imprisonment to 15 years of simple imprisonment.