Karachi: A district court on Monday awarded capital punishment to a police constable and life imprisonment to a volunteer cop for the Police Qaumi Razakar (PQR) for murdering a teenage student and wounding another in an alleged fake encounter in Gulshan-e-Iqbal.
On October 10, 2016, constable Bannal Khan and Zafar Abbas, patrolling on a motorcycle, had opened fire at two cousins – Atiqullah and Azizullah – near the Nipa Flyover after they allegedly ignored the cops’ signal to stop, leaving them injured.
Atiqullah, a second-year student at the Rangers College, had later succumbed to his injuries.Both accused were booked in an FIR lodged at the Gulshan-e-Iqbal police station under Section 302 (murder), 324 (attempt to murder), and Section 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
After recording evidence and hearing arguments from both sides, Additional District and Sessions Judge-I (East) Haleem Ahmed pronounced the verdict. “The prosecution successfully proved that from the firing of accused PC Bannal, Atiqullah died and Azizullah sustained firearm injuries,” said the judge.He added, “Both the accused persons were patrolling on the same motorcycle.
They acted in furtherance of common intention and after the incident they tried to manage the facts so as to make it appear that a police encounter had taken place; thus, common intention of the accused was proved.”The court awarded the death sentence to Bannal Khan and life imprisonment to Zafar Abbas for the murder of Atiqullah.
Both were also convicted of the offence defined under Section 324 of the PPC and awarded a prison term of the period they have already stayed in prison.In addition to that, the court directed the convicts to pay compensation of Rs1 million each to the legal heirs of the deceased and imposed a fine of Rs50,000 on both convicts. In case of failure to pay the compensation and the fine, they would have to undergo additional imprisonment of one year. The convicts were remanded to the Karachi central prison to serve the sentences according to the law.
The state prosecutor, Muhammad Ashraf Bhatti, said the accused had signaled Atiqullah and his cousin Azizullah, riding a motorcycle, to stop, and when they didn’t, the accused chased and opened fire at them near the Nipa Flyover, killing one of them while injuring the other.A judicial magistrate had initially referred the case to an anti-terrorism court for trial, but the ATC later remanded the case back to a normal court, ruling that the act of the accused did not fall within the ambit of terrorism.According to the content of the FIR, Atiqullah and Azizullah left for their coaching centre on a motorcycle on October 10, 2016.
The complainant, the victims’ cousin, said he along with his father rushed to Jinnah Hospital after getting a phone call from Azizullah, who disclosed that he and Atiqullah were on their way to the coaching centre when the police intercepted and opened fire at them, injuring him and his cousin. Azizullah later died from the bullet wound, he said. The incident had triggered protests by their relatives.
