Honour killing convict sentenced to death
PESHAWAR, May 26 2006: The Supreme Court here on May 25 awarded capital punishment to an appellant in an honour-related murder of seven people. A two-member bench comprising Justice Falak Sher and Justice Nasirul Mulk dismissed an appeal filed by the appellant, Hashmat Ali, challenging the sentence of life imprisonment awarded to him by the Peshawar High Court.
A trial court in Charssada had convicted the appellant for injuring his wife and killing her seven relatives including her parents and three brothers. He was sentenced to death on seven counts by the trial court. However, the high court had commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court bench enhanced the sentence of life imprisonment to death on seven counts.
The appellant’s counsel had claimed before the high court that he was a juvenile offender as he was only 15 at the time of the murder. However, as his age was not recorded at any stage of the trial, therefore the high court did not accept that plea. The bench observed that no body could be given license to kill people of pretext of honour. The bench observed that if courts started giving relaxations on such grounds everyone would obtain a certificate from the DCO after killing people on pretext of honour.
The bench had taken suo motu notice of the issue during hearing of the appeal and had issued notice to the appellant asking him to show cause why not his sentence should be enhanced. The appellant was doubtful about the character of his wife, Ms Shehla. On June 14, 2000, he along with some of his friends attacked a residence where Ms Shehla was staying along with her relatives. They first made all the inmates unconscious with a spray and then opened indiscriminate fire at them.
The firing resulted in the killing of Shamsher Ali, his wife Wajahat, his three sons Naveed, Ajmal and Musawar, two other women Gul Meena and Maryam. Shehla received injuries during the incident. The appellant surrendered before the police and confessed his guilt. In his confessional statement he alleged that wife used to visit other persons and when he came to know about that he decided to kill her.
Source: Dawn
Date:5/26/2006
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