Four get death sentence for murdering boy

RAWALPINDI:

An anti-terrorism court here on Wednesday sentenced four men to death for kidnapping and killing a teenage boy in Pirwadhai last year.

Special Judge ATC-II Rana Masood Akhtar convicted Fazal Hussain, Muhammad Aslam, Muhammad Javaid and Ghulam Hussain on three counts for killing Rehman Ghani, 17, after kidnapping him and getting ransom money from his father.

Each convict has to pay Rs100,000 to the victim’s heirs. The court also gave seven-year sentences to each convict with Rs50,000 fine for concealing the body and two years with Rs10,000 fine for planning the kidnapping.

Another accused, Abdul Malik, has yet to be arrested and was declared a proclaimed offender.

The victim’s father, Muhammad Gul, had paid Rs400,000 as ransom.

According to the prosecutor, the convicts kidnapped Ghani on March 3, 2011. On March 11, his father received a call from the kidnappers demanding Rs2 million as ransom. On March 20 the Pirwadhai police registered a kidnapping case against unknown persons.

The kidnappers called him at Pindi Bhattian to pay the ransom amount. He handed over the money to a man and identified him as Ghulam Hussain. He recognized the other accused who were sitting in a rickshaw nearby.

On his return, he informed the police, who started search for the kidnappers, Gul said.

On April 16 2011, the accused were arrested in Pirwadhai.

During interrogation they confessed to strangulating Ghani and dumping his body.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2012.