Student’s murder: Three convicts sentenced to death

The abductors had demanded Rs1 million ransom from Haq’s father, but later killed him.

KARACHI:

The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) announced death penalty for three people involved in the kidnapping and murder of an Aligarh Institute of Technology student, killed in 2005.

Qazi Muneebul Haq was kidnapped from Gulshan-e-Maymar on October 10, 2005, reportedly by his friend Atif Khan along with two accomplices, Syed Rizwan Ahmed and Abdul Asif. The abductors demanded Rs1 million ransom from Haq’s father, but later killed him.

The police found the abandoned body from Latifabad graveyard in Hyderabad on October 25, which was identified by the victim’s father, Qazi Mashhudul Haq.

The father had earlier registered a missing report of his son.

The Sindh High Court’s Chief Justice Musheer Alam during his visit to the ATCs on June 3 stressed the need to execute death-row prisoners to send a message that everyone was equal before the law. He also urged the government to not give in to foreign pressure against capital punishment.

As the chief justice stressed on executions, around 6,000 Pakistani prisoners on death-row await their black warrants after President Asif Ali Zardari’s stay on the execution of the convicts expired on June 30.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2013.