Man awarded life sentence for stabbing scrap dealer to death

A model court has sentenced a man to life imprisonment in a 2021 murder case. Umer Khan was found guilty of stabbing Peer Muhammad, 35, to death after a scuffle in Sindhi Muslim Society on September 9, 2021. Additional District and Sessions Judge Aziz Ur Rehman Junejo of the Model Criminal Trial Court (East) observed that the prosecution successfully proved its case against the accused beyond shadow of reasonable doubt.

The judge ruled that it had been proved that the accused committed the murder of scrap dealer Peer Muhammad by attacking him with a knife and handed down life imprisonment to the convict.

The court ordered the convict to pay Rs500,000 as compensation to the legal heirs of the deceased or undergo an additional six-month imprisonment on default. Explaining the decision not to award death penalty to the convict, the judge said that a scuffle had taken place between the victim and the accused before the murder, during which the victim struck the accused with a wooden stick and the accused attacked the victim with a knife.

“Further, motive of the incident is also not proved by the prosecution, which creates strong mitigating circumstances to award lesser punishment to the accused,” he said, adding, “the presence of element of sudden altercation on heat of movement without any prior intention may also not be ruled out making further ground for availability of mitigating circumstances.”

An FIR was lodged at the Ferozabad police station under the sections 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the complaint of the victim’s brother.