Shahzaib murder case: SHC commutes death sentence of Shahrukh, other convict to life imprisonment

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday commuted death sentence of Shahrukh Jatoi and Siraj Ali Talpur to life imprisonment but maintained the life jail term of the remaining two convicts in the Shahzaib Khan murder case.

Shahrukh and Siraj were sentenced to death while Siraj’s brother Nawab Sajjad Ali Talpur and his employee Ghulam Murtaza Lashari were sentenced to life imprisonment by an anti-terrorism court on June 7, 2013, after it found them guilty of murdering private university student Shahzaib on December 24, 2012.

A special constituted bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar heard and decided the appeals following judgment of the Supreme Court which set aside the previous judgment of the SHC in which the high court had struck down the conviction awarded by the anti-terrorism court and remanded back the case to a sessions court for de novo trial.

Disposing of appeals of the convicts through a detailed judgment, the SHC observed that since the legal heirs of the deceased Shahzaib had compounded the offence of Qatl-i-amad under the Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), therefore, along the lines of dictums laid down by the Supreme Court with regard to the impact and effect of compounding offences under the provisions of the PPC and the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997, the death sentence awarded to Shahrukh and Siraj was reduced from death penalty to life imprisonment under the Section 7 (a) of the ATA 1997, which was not compoundable.

The court observed that the sentence of life imprisonment awarded to appellants Lashari and Sajjad was though compoundable under the Section 302 of the PPC but these two appellants had also been sentenced to life imprisonment under the Section 7 (a) of the ATA 1997, which was maintained. The SHC observed that the prosecution had established the charge and there was no illegality or wrongfulness in the impugned judgment of the trial court.

The high court observed that nothing was on record to believe or doubt the presence of eyewitnesses at the place of incident or to mull over or contemplate their statements false according to the principle of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (false in one thing, false in everything) which was now in line with the aforesaid dictum of the Supreme Court had become an integral part of jurisprudence in criminal cases which was to be given effect to, followed and applied by all the courts in the country in its letter and spirit.