Man handed down seven-year imprisonment for firing in air

A local court on Tuesday sentenced a man to seven-year imprisonment in a case pertaining to aerial firing with an illicit weapon.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (South) Shahid Ali Memon found Hamid Khan guilty of resorting to aerial firing with an unlicensed pistol within the jurisdiction of the Kalakot police station on January 1 this year.

The judge also ordered the convict to pay a fine of Rs50,000 or undergo an additional six-month imprisonment. He announced this order after recording evidence and final arguments from the defence and prosecution sides.

State prosecutor Kamran Ahmed argued that the accused was found firing shots in the air from his house's window in the wee hours of January 1. He was subsequently arrested by a patrolling police party that recovered a 30-bore caliber pistol from his possession, the prosecutor added.

He said the accused claimed that his pistol was licensed in his name but during the course of the investigation, the licence could not be verified by the provincial home department.

The prosecutor stated that the spent bullet casing seized from the scene matched with the weapon of the accused and therefore, pleaded with the judge to punish him according to

the law.

The accused, however, denied the charges claiming that he had falsely been implicated in the case. An FIR was lodged under the Section 23(I)(A) of the Sindh Arms Act, 2013, at the Kalakot police station.