Man’s bail plea in abduction and murder case rejected

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has dismissed the bail application of a man in a kidnapping and murder case. Noor Agha was booked for kidnapping and murdering Hameedullah in the Sohrab Goth police jurisdiction on August 18, 2022.

According to the prosecution, the applicant was involved in Hameedullah’s kidnapping from Machhar Colony in the presence of locals, along with other co-accused, and the victim’s body with a gunshot wound in the head was found the same day in the Northern Bypass area.

The prosecution claimed that the kidnapping and murder plan was made by main accused Wali Mohammad, who was the victim’s brother-in-law and had hired Dawood and his men from Quetta to take revenge upon the victim for molesting Mohammad’s younger sister. The applicant is Mohammad’s brother.

The applicant’s counsel said his client was detained in the case for more than two years, adding that he should be granted bail on the statutory ground of delay in the trial.

He said the applicant was being detained solely on an extrajudicial confession, adding that in the absence of a prior criminal record, the role assigned to the applicant for abetting the murder does not make him a hardened, desperate or dangerous criminal.

The deputy prosecutor general said the applicant is a hardened, desperate or dangerous criminal within the meaning of thefourth proviso to Section 497(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, and he is not entitled to bail.

After hearing the arguments of the counsel, a single SHC bench headed by Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry said that it has been held by the Supreme Court that the statutory ground of delay is to be considered from the date of arrest/detention of the accused and not from the date the charge was framed.

The bench said that it is a fact that from the date of the applicant’s arrest on October 10, 2022, the applicant has been in continuous detention for a period exceeding two years, and thus far only six prosecution witnesses out of a list of 20 have been examined by the trial court.

The court said that the charge of abetting abduction and murder is indeed a charge for a grave offence, and the applicant is the brother of the principal accused, adding that it was the information divulged by the applicant on interrogation that unravelled the crime.

The bench said that it is alleged by the prosecution that the applicant confessed during interrogation that he was part of the plan to commit the offence, and that he was also riding in another car that accompanied the Toyota Vigo in which the victim was abducted.

The court said that while it is correct that the extrajudicial confession of the applicant by itself was of no evidential value, he led the police to the spot where the victim was shot, and from where two empties of a 9mm firearm were recovered.

The bench said that as per the forensic report shown to the court from the police file, those empties matched the pistol recovered from the principal accused. The court said the applicant falls within the bracket of a hardened, desperate or dangerous criminal within the meaning of the fourth proviso to Section 497(1), which is an exception to the right of bail on the statutory ground of delay under the third proviso. The SHC then dismissed the bail application.