SHC upholds death sentence of convict in double murder case

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday dismissed the appeal of a convicted murderer and upheld his death sentence in a double murder case.

Mohammad Qasim was sentenced to death by an additional district and sessions court Malir for murdering two persons, Mohammad Farooq and Mohammad Haris, in the Malir area on November 2, 2019.

According to the prosecution, the appellant had earlier quarrelled with the deceased men over the theft of a Wifi router. The counsel for the appellant on his instruction also did not press appeal on merit but sought reduction in sentence from the death penalty to life imprisonment on grounds that the prosecution had failed to prove motive behind the murders.

An additional prosecutor general submitted that the prosecution had proved its case beyond any shadow of doubt and provided evidence of motive for the murders which were brutal in nature and requested the high court to maintain the death sentence.

A division bench of the high court headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha after perusal of the evidence observed that the prosecution had both asserted and proved the motive behind the murder of two persons by the appellant.

The high court observed that in the instant case, two innocent persons were murdered over a petty dispute through a cold blooded pre-mediated murder in front of their house in broadday light. The judges observed that they did not consider that the appellant deserved any leniency in the sentence especially as there were no mitigating circumstances and only aggravating factors were there.

The SHC observed that a deterrent sentence was the more appropriate one to prevent such brutal crimes. The bench dismissed the appeal and maintained the trial court’s

conviction.