SHC acquits man in army employee murder case

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday set aside life imprisonment of a man in the murder of an army employee, observing that the prosecution had failed to prove the charge against him.

Naseer Ahmed, alias Mullah, was sentenced to life imprisonment by an anti-terrorism court for murdering an army man in the Lyari area on September 11, 2014. According to the prosecution, unidentified persons had killed army employee Tariq after abducting him while he was travelling with his friend on a motorcycle in the Saddar area. Later, the body was found in the Baghdadi area.

A counsel for the appellant submitted that he had been falsely implicated in the case as neither was he implicated in the FIR nor was there any evidence connecting him with the commission of murder.

An additional prosecutor general supported the trial court order and submitted that the appellant had admitted his guilt in his confessional statement before a judicial magistrate and the prosecution had proved its case beyond any reasonable doubt.

A division bench of the SHC comprising Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha and Justice Zulfiqar Ali Sangi after hearing the arguments of the counsel and perusal of evidence observed that the sole eyewitness had remained silent for eight days about the incident wherein he did not disclose the description of the accused persons to show his ability to identify them.

The high court observed that the sole eyewitness also made improvements at the time of recording of his evidence before the trial court dishonestly to bring the case in the line with other witnesses of the prosecution.

The bench observed that there was no evidence provided by the prosecution with regard to torturing of the deceased by the accused so also with respect to who had thrown the body of the deceased after kidnapping him.