Two men get life imprisonment for killing friend with acid

A model court has recently sentenced two accused to life imprisonment for killing a man in an acid attack over a monetary issue in Gulshan-e-Iqbal.

The accused, Shahrukh and Arbabuddin, alias Chama, were found guilty of murdering Azizullah by throwing acid at him. The incident occurred within the jurisdiction of the Gulshan-e-Iqbal police station in May 2020.

Pronouncing the verdict, Additional District and Sessions Judge Abdul Zahoor Chandio of the Model Criminal Trial Court (East) observed that the prosecution had successfully proved its case against the accused beyond any shadow of doubt. The order was reserved previously, after the recording of evidence and final arguments from the defence and prosecution sides.

The judge awarded life imprisonment to both the accused and ordered them to pay Rs700,000 each as compensation to the legal heirs of the deceased. In case of failure to pay the compensation, they would have to undergo an additional six-month imprisonment.

He noted that "the prosecution has established that accused persons in furtherance of their common intention have thrown acid upon Azizullah because of which he expired during treatment." He added that the presence of the accused persons at the place of the incident was established through sufficient evidence placed on the record by the prosecution.

He said that Arbabuddin had also recorded his confessional statement admitting to his involvement in the commissioning of the offence along with Shahrukh.

The judge highlighted that the accused persons were not given capital punishment for the murder because there were minor procedural contradictions and anomalies in depositions of the prosecution, such as it failed to prove from where they purchased the acid. He added that however these discrepancies did not suffice to create any doubt about the genuineness of the entire incident.

He said that Shahrukh was a neighbour of the victim and there was no chance of substitution of real culprit with him in the absence of any cogent evidence, while Arbabuddin was identified by witnesses during the trial.

The judge pointed out that the accused did not even challenge the the facts presented by the prosecution that the acid burn wounds on the deceased matched with the injuries they had sustained.

This was also corroborated in the testimonies of the doctors who examined them. He said that although the defence counsel pointed out so many contradictions including about the place of the incident and car numbers, but these inconsistencies by the prosecution did not refute the happening of the incident. He added that if there was any procedural mistake, the victim could not be blamed for it.

State prosecutor Muhammad Ashraf Bhatti argued that Azizullah and Shahrukh were friends. The victim had given Shahrukh a car to sell it. He said that after some time, when the victim demanded payment for the vehicle, Shahrukh drove him to Gulshan-e-Iqbal on the pretext of collecting the owed amount.

The prosecutor added that when they reached near the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology, Shahrukh's friend Arbabuddin, who was sitting on the back seat of the car, poured acid on Azizullah on the front seat. The victim sustained critical wounds and died during treatment at a hospital. Bhatti mentioned that both the accused also sustained burn injuries in the incident.

The FIR of the incident was lodged under the sections 334 (causing hurt to any person), 336-B (punishment for hurt by corrosive substances), 337 A-I (punishment for shajjah), 365 (kidnapping), 302 (premeditated murder), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Gulshan-e-Iqbal police station.