Revenge crime is not terrorist activity, says SC

Bench converts death sentence of six convicts into life sentence after imprisonment of 17 years

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has declared that revenge crimes cannot be dragged into the ambit of terrorism and terrorist activities.

The top court has also urged lower courts to exercise caution so that ordinary crimes might not be pushed into the grey area of terrorism or terrorist activities to be dealt with under the law.

The three-judge bench, headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, on Friday converted the death sentence of six convicts into life sentence after 17 years of imprisonment.

The court, setting aside terrorism charges against the convicted persons, observed that crimes committed in a gruesome or detestable manner for personal motive would not be sufficient enough to bring the acts within the meaning of terrorism or terrorist activities.



The bench in its written order adjudicated an important question that whether in view of the specific personal motive to take revenge, set up by the prosecution, which was maintained up to the end of the trial, is in fact, taking out the case from the fold of terrorism.

Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, while authoring the 22-page verdict, said that if crimes committed due to personal revenge or motive were given the colour of terrorism or terrorist activities, hundreds and hundreds of Criminal Courts (Sessions Courts) and other courts would be rendered inoperative and their vested jurisdiction would be taken away for no justifiable reason.

“The prosecution and disgruntled complainants have been noticed making crude attempts to paint an ordinary crime as an act of terrorism so that the rival/opposite party is put through maximum mental agony,” says the order.

The court says that the courts of law should not lose sight of the fact that terrorism and terrorist activities are committed and are carried out by a person, group of persons and well-equipped organisations, whose primary aim and object is to destabilise society and the state as a whole through such activities.



“The object behind such activities is clearly spelled out from the nature of the crime committed, which must be attended to by the courts with a deep judicial thought, as in the latter category the sole object/purpose in committing different crimes is to cause alarm, dread and fright inducing sense of insecurity in the minds of the people,” says the order.