Two sentenced to death, one to life in prison for murder

A model court on Wednesday sentenced two men to death and a juvenile offender to life imprisonment, convicting them of committing a robbery and killing a person during it three years ago.

Mujahid, Raheem and Shaukat were found guilty of murdering Bakhti Rehman in a robbery at his oil depot in Lyari’s Kalri area on August 18, 2016.

According to the FIR, which was registered on the complaint of a brother of the deceased, three young men on a motorbike arrived at the Usman Cooking Oil Depot and asked Rehman at gunpoint to hand over all the cash he had.

On Rehman’s resistance, one of the suspects opened fire on him, which proved fatal. The FIR added that after firing shots at Rehman, the robbers took away all the cash he had at the depot and escaped.

Rehman was rushed to the Civil Hospital Karachi by the nearby shopkeepers. He was taken to the operation theatre, but he succumbed to his injuries during treatment.

Among the suspects, Shaukat was tried separately for being under the age of 18. The police had found unlicensed weapons on all of the suspects and they were also charged for it.

During the trial, the advocate for complainant Kher Muhammad Khattak pleaded for severe punishments for the accused, contending that all the evidences such as the forensic science laboratory report on the empties found at the crime scene and the eyewitness accounts corroborated that they had committed the crime in cold blood.

After finding the accused guilty of the offences, the judge awarded Mujahid and Raheem death sentences for the murder and a collective 21 years imprisonment — 14 for possessing illegal weapons and seven for the robbery — to be run concurrently.

The judge awarded life imprisonment to Shaukat and observed that the court had taken a lenient view in the sentencing because of his young age. All three of them were in jail, and after the pronouncement of the verdict, they were sent back to serve the remaining sentence.