Amir Shahnawaz acquitted in Kalashnikov case

ISLAMABAD: Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Umar Shabbir Monday gave Shahnawaz Amir the benefit of doubt and acquitted him in a case pertaining to possessing a Kalashnikov.

Amir is Sarah Inam’s husband and son of journalist Ayaz Amir. The judge pronounced that the prosecution had miserably failed to prove the charges against Shahnawaz.

It also rejected the evidence provided by the prosecution, stating that it was doubtful. Judicial Magistrate Umar Shabbir said benefit of doubt was the right of the accused. “Complainant constable Tariq was not produced as a witness,” the court noted.

It is worthy to note that the police had registered a separate case related to the recovery of a Kalashnikov from the suspect. Currently, the final arguments in the murder case against Shahnawaz are continuing at the session court.

Last month, the prime suspect rejected all the evidence submitted by the prosecution against him, terming it “baseless”. Amir was presented before Additional District and Sessions Judge Nasir Javed Rana, where he told the court that on the night of the incident, his mother prepared a dinner for them.

“We all ate together, chatted a lot and then went to sleep. Sarah went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I was asleep at that time. I woke up at 7am and went to F-8 Market to get breakfast. When I came back at 9am, Sarah was not in the room and upon searching, he found her lying in a bathtub. When I saw Sarah, she was already dead.”

Sarah, a 37-year-old economist, was murdered with dumbbells by her husband Shahnawaz in Islamabad’s Chak Shahzad area on Friday, September 23, 2022. The suspect earlier confessed to committing the crime and said he “thought” his spouse was having an affair with someone else and killed his wife in an act of self-defence.