The anti-terrorism court (ATC) appellate bench of SHC reserved its order on the appeal filed by a convict, who was sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing a minor girl in Karachi in 2007.
According to prosecution, Tanveer Ahmed kidnapped his cousin, eight-year-old Iqra, who had been playing outside her house in Sector 11 ½, Orangi Town, on February 25, 2007 within the jurisdiction of Pakistan Bazaar police station.
Ahmed then phoned Iqra’s family to demand a ransom of Rs500,000, but later reduced it to Rs50,000.
The police tracked Ahmed down by tracing the phone calls. The accused confessed during interrogation that he had chopped up Iqra, whose decomposed body parts were later recovered from within the jurisdictions of Mochko and Preedy police stations.
The victim’s father, Saleem, filed a case, FIR 74/2007, under Sections 365-A, 302 and 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code at PS Soldier Bazaar.
On December 13, 2008, ATC-I sentenced Ahmed to death. The court also ordered him to pay Rs0.5 million to the victim’s family in compensation & six months of rigorous imprisonment. Advocate Haris Ahmed, representing Ahmed, stated that the trial court failed to consider contradictions in statements of prosecution witnesses.
He argued there was no evidence to connect the appellant with commission of alleged offence and that he did not demand any ransom. He prayed to set aside the judgment passed by the trial court.
After hearing arguments by both counsels, SHC ATC appellate bench, comprising Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Imam Bux Baloch, adjourned the hearing without giving any verdict.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 30th, 2010.
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