'Arms recovery sans forensics not conclusive'

The Lahore High Court (LHC) has ruled that the recovery of a weapon, without forensic confirmation linking it to the crime, cannot be treated as incriminating evidence. Citing serious gaps in the prosecution's case, the court acquitted Shahid Mehmood alias Demo, who had been convicted of killing two people during a dacoity.

A two-member bench led by Justice Muhammad Tariq Nadeem observed that the prosecution "miserably failed" to establish the convict's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The bench criticized the trial court for giving undue weight to the recovery of a Kalashnikov and bullets, which were neither linked to the crime through forensic evidence nor shown to be in the exclusive possession of the accused.

The prosecution had presented the recovery of a Kalashnikov and three bullets from an abandoned house as key evidence. However, the court found that this recovery failed on multiple counts.

"No crime empties were sent to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) for ballistic comparison with the recovered weapon," the judgment noted. "Without this forensic linkage, the recovery remains disconnected from the crime."

The court also noted that the prosecution failed to prove that the location from where the weapon was recovered was in Shahid's exclusive control.

The site plan prepared by the investigating officer lacked any such confirmation, and no circumstantial evidence was offered to establish the accused's dominion over the abandoned house. The bench ruled that the identification parade conducted more than 20 months after the crime was unreliable.