Sons’ appeal against conviction for killing father dismissed

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday dismissed the appeal of two men against their conviction for murdering their father in the name of honour, but commuted their life imprisonment sentence to a jail term of 12 years.

Mohammad Faizan and Mohammad Noman were sentenced to life imprisonment by the Additional District & Sessions Court (West) for murdering their father Shakeel Ahmed on September 23, 2019.

According to the prosecution, the appellants had committed the murder of their father due to his involvement in the sexual harassment of their sister. The appellants’ counsel said that the murder was not intentional but in self-defence and due to sudden provocation, requesting the court to acquit them of the charges against them.

The additional prosecutor general said the prosecution had proved its case beyond any reasonable doubt, and the confessional statements of the appellants were voluntarily, with the object to tell the truth and fit within the prosecution’s case.

He said the appellants had been arrested red-handed from their house, and the murder weapon had been recovered from the possession of the appellant Faizan, so it could not be said the case was one of self-defence.

After hearing the arguments of the counsels and the perusal of the evidence, a single SHC bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha said that the motive of the murder was that the deceased was involved in sexually assaulting the sister of the appellants, according to the FIR and the confessional statements of the appellants.

The court said the appellants’ counsel’s defence of self-defence cannot be relied upon because the appellant Faizan was stabbed once by the deceased, while the deceased was stabbed nine times, according to the medical report.

The bench said the appellants could have run away and saved their sister after stabbing the deceased once or twice when he was unarmed and no longer posed a threat to the lives of the appellants.

The court said that the confessional statements of the appellants show that their father had a history of sexually assaulting their sister, and on the day of the incident they went to save their sister (who did not give her evidence) from another sexual assault.

The bench said the prosecution did not prove the murder case under Section 302(b) but the case against the appellants was proved under Section 302(c), which is murder due to sudden provocation. The court dismissed the convicts’ appeal but commuted the life imprisonment sentence to a 12-year jail term under Section 302(c).