‘Habitual’ paedophile Sohail Ayaz sentenced to death

A Rawalpindi trial court on Wednesday sentenced ‘habitual’ paedophile Sohail Ayaz to death on three counts apart from awarding him three sentences of rigorous imprisonment for abducting and raping young boys and for recording and disseminating the heinous acts.

Ayaz has previously been convicted of similar crimes in the UK and Italy before being deported to Pakistan.

The Additional District and Sessions Judge Jehangir Ali Gondal on Wednesday issued a written verdict wherein the court found Ayaz and his accomplice Khurram Tahir guilty of kidnapping three children.

The court handed three sentences of the death penalty to Chartered Accountant Ayaz under section 367-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) - for deceitfully taking the victims to his house, confining them, administering them with intoxicants such as ice (crystal methamphetamine) and then raping them.

“He be hanged by neck till his death.” read the verdict.

He was also ordered to pay Rs500,000 as compensation to the family of each of his three victims.

The court further found Ayaz guilty under sections 337, 337-J and 292-C of the PPC - sodomy and participating and profiting from the recording of and sale of child pornography - and was sentenced thrice to serve life in prison, three sentences of 15 years of rigorous imprisonment and three sentences of spending seven years of rigorous imprisonment.

The court also fined him a cumulative Rs4.5 million.

Tahir was handed three seven-year (maximum permitted) prison terms and a cumulative Rs300,000 fine for abducting the victims.

The court noted that even though Ayaz is highly educated, “instead of serving humanity in useful manners, he misused his capabilities in destroying the bright future of minors.

“He had committed offences against society.”

Despite having been convicted by a court in the UK, he neither changed his conduct nor reformed himself to become a useful citizen of Pakistan, the Judge Gondal observed, adding that Ayaz repeatedly raped children and exploited the innocent children of the beloved country.

“Such accused is like a malignant knot in the body of civil society and deserves nothing but a harsh surgical treatment,” the court observed, adding that children are like blooming flowers and he who crushes their innocence under his cruel feet, needs no leniency by a court of law.

Judge Gondal further termed Ayaz’s act as “inhuman, rather worse than beasts” because even beasts do not ravage the innocence of cubs.

Co-accused Tahir was also admonished by the court.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2020.