Death warrant issued in rape, murder case

PESHAWAR: A death warrant has been issued for a condemned prisoner to be hanged on January 31 in the Haripur Central Prison in the rape-cum-murder case of an underage girl.

As per the warrant of execution issued on January 17 by Additional District and Sessions Judge-V Peshawar to the superintendent of the Haripur Central Prison, Jehanzaib was sentenced by the court on May 19, 1998 for life. However, the Federal Shariat Court on January 6, 2006 changed the verdict and converted it to death sentence.

The convict was a close relative of the deceased Shabana and he first raped her and then slaughtered her with a piece of glass at her house in 1996. "This is to authorise and require you to carry out the said sentence into execution by causing the said Jehanzaib to be hanged by the neck until he be dead at Haripur on January 31, 2018 and return this warrant to the court with an endorsement, certifying that the sentence has been executed," the warrant of execution stated.

As per the decision, Jan Muhammad, complainant in the first information report lodged at Bana Mari Police Station in Peshawar, had stated that his brother was an employee at a government hospital and his sister-in-law Rukhsana also went to the hospital for her medical check-up, leaving her 13-year-old daughter Shabana at home.

"When the brothers and sister of Shabana came home from school, they found the door of the room locked from inside and started crying for opening the door. The complainant stated that he came there from nearby Hujra after hearing cries of the children in his brother's house. He said the children told him that Jehanzaib and his niece were in the room and the door was locked. "Jehanzaib appeared from the room and threw a piece of glass on them and ran away," the complainant had stated in the FIR. He added that when he entered the room along with the children, they saw Shabana lying dead in a pool of blood.

The police then charged Jehanzaib for the murder and rape on the basis of the medical report. The trial court awarded life term to the killer and rapist under section 302 (b) of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and fined him Rs100,000. The court convicted him up to 15 years imprisonment under section 10 (3) of the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood). In the review appeal filed by Rukhsana, mother of the deceased Shabana, the Federal Shariat Court on January 31, 2006 enhanced the sentence of the killer to death sentence.