Two clerics get death for kidnapping, murdering student

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court on Monday sentenced two clerics to death after finding them guilty of kidnapping a 15-year-old student for ransom and later murdering him. According to the prosecution, Qari Abdul Majeed and Qari Ahsan Ali had kidnapped Abdul Moiz on June 26, 2016 just after his parents allowed him to sit in Aitkaaf at the Ghousia Qadriya Masjid in Khudadad Colony. Moiz was kept hostage for four days in a house in Usmania Colony and after the payment of Rs400,000 in ransom by his family, he was killed by the accused and they dismembered his body into parts, it added. The ATC-XX judge ordered that the convicts be hanged by neck till their death and each of them pay a fine of Rs1 million to the family of the victim otherwise they will undergo five years more in prison. Moiz’s father Mohammad Arif had lodged a complaint with the Brigade Police that his son had brought an application form for Aitkaaf and after taking his signatures had gone to submit it to the mosque but he never reached there, nor returned home. He said the next day he received a text message from his son’s number asking him to arrange Rs700,000. The kidnappers were using the captive’s mobile phone and number for ransom. The family had agreed to pay Rs400,00 to the kidnappers for the release of Moiz. The money was dropped in a mini truck parked near the Askari Amusement Park on the University Road after which the kidnappers had told the family that the captive will return home soon but they never did. Following the clues given by the family, the local police and Anti-Violent Crime Cell launched an investigation into the case and through the call data record of Moiz found that he had been in touch with his teacher Majeed at the time he went missing. Four months later police acting on a tip managed to arrest his accomplice, Ali, near National Medical Center on the Korangi Road. Ali during interrogation confessed that he along with Majeed brought Moiz on a motorcycle to a place in Usmania Colony and made him captive. One month later, on November 20, 2016, a spy informed police that Majeed was present at the VIP Gate of the Mazar-e-Quaid. He was arrested from there. He later led police for the recovery of the knife and dagger with which he killed his student. According to the prosecutor Iqbal Meo Rajput, Majeed dismembered Moiz’s body into parts and with the help of his aide threw some of them into sea from the Native Jetty Bridge and some of them in a nullah in Kharadar. The police conducted a DNA test of the blood found on the knife and dagger with the blood of the victim’s mother from the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences in Jamshoro and found it to be of Moiz.