Rape-murder case: Notices issued to convicts

Duo has appealed against lifetime conviction

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday formally issued notices to a man and a woman convicted of rape and murder charges.

Abrar Ahmed and Zahra Mehak have appealed for commutation of their life sentences, awarded by a local court in two separate rape-murders cases.

The appeal may have legal ramifications for the duo as the court had earlier observed that prima facie they may be awarded death penalty keeping in view the nature of the offence they had committed.

The convicts, currently serving life terms in Adiala Jail, were produced before IHC division bench comprising Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani on Wednesday.

Earlier, Justice Siddiqui had observed that the crime they had committed was horrible in nature and the life sentence awarded to them was below what they deserved. He had also noted that based on available evidence, the convicts should have been awarded a maximum penalty —death — and that the life terms awarded to them did not fit their crimes.

Subsequently, he had referred the case to the IHC chief justice for formation of a division bench, which formally took up their appeal for hearing.

A district and sessions court in Islamabad had awarded both life imprisonment along with a fine of Rs500,000 each.

They were convicted of two separate rape-murders. Their victims were an 11-year-old girl and a university student. Abrar raped them with the connivance of Mehak, with whom he was romantically involved. The prosecution said that after raping the child, Abrar and Mehak had set her on fire in an attempt to destroy any evidence.

The police found her body in Sector 1-9/1 in a stream that had gone dry. Abrar, a resident of Lala Musa, was a student at the National University of Modern Languages in 2011, where he met Mehak. When Mehak insisted that they get married, Abrar claimed that he was HIV positive and that raping virgin girls would cure him, according to previous reports.

He had confessed before the police that he had AIDS and was abducting and raping women and young girls with the help of his accomplice “to cure himself”.

The prosecution said that Mehak first introduced Abrar to the daughter of a former police official — the older victim — and then brought in the minor, who used to take school tuition from Mehak.

Abrar would give his victims a drink laced with an intoxicant that would knock them out before subjecting them to physical violence.

Abrar had also confessed to raping and murdering a girl in Lala Musa.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2016.