Eight years on, Sulaiman Lashari’s killer convicted

Court hands life sentence plus 10 years to Salman Abro for killing the O level student in 2014

KARACHI:

A Special Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) has sentenced Salman Abro to life imprisonment and another 10 years imprisonment for attempted murder in the murder case of student Sulaiman Mustafa Lashari.

The court also sentenced Arshad, Yaseen, Maqbool and Imran to life imprisonment.

The court sentenced the accused Zeeshan Lashari and Mustafa in the case to two years imprisonment for damaging property.

The Special ATC Court No7 in the Anti-Terrorism Complex in Karachi Central Jail handed down the verdict in the murder case of student Suleiman Mustafa Lashari eight years after the incident. The prosecution succeeded in proving its case beyond any doubt.

O Levels student Sulaiman Lashari was gunned down on May 8, 2014 on the balcony of his home in Defence Housing Authority at around 2am when he was preparing for a Chemistry paper due a few hours later.

He was allegedly killed by the main accused in the case, Salman Abro, son of Sakrand Police Training Centre SSP Ghulam Sarwar Abro.

Read More: Villarreal eye another giant-killing

Abro had arrived at the victim's home with five police constables to 'settle' an argument that had emanated from a car race a few days earlier, according to investigators. Sulaiman was killed in the shoot-out, while his brother Zeeshan and the guards deployed at their house retaliated and killed constable Zaheer Ahmed as well as injuring Abro.

The defence had been accused of deliberately delaying the proceedings. A state prosecutor previously tasked with the case said, "the defence moved against every person associated with the case; from the investigating officer to the judge [who heard the case earlier].

 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2022.