Man who killed two over property dispute executed

RAWALPINDI: A condemned prisoner was executed at the Adiala Jail on Tuesday morning for killing his brother and sister-in-law over a property dispute in 1998 in Kallar Syedan.

Muhammad Azram was taken to the gallows at around 4:30am and hanged. The jail authorities, after completing formalities, handed over his body to his family.

Azram had shot his brother Muhammad Javaid and sister-in-law Rukhsana Kausar on May 31, 1998, over a property dispute in Jochach Mamdod village within the remits of Kallar Syedan police station.

Local police arrested Azram three years later on April 21, 2001. An additional district and sessions judge in Rawalpindi later sentenced him to death on two counts of murder on September 30, 2004, six years after the murder.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs500,000 on Azram. In the case of non-payment, the convict was sentenced to serve another six months in jail.

The convict appealed his sentence in the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench. The appeal was rejected on April 6, 2010. He then appealed to the Supreme Court, but the apex court too turned down his plea on January 2, 2017.

A mercy petition sent to the President of Pakistan was turned down on July 7, 2017.

After the prisoner had exhausted all appeal options, the district and session judge Rawalpindi fixed July 18 as the execution day.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2017.