KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has quashed the sentences of the accused in the Orangi Pilot Project director Perween Rahman’s murder case.
The SHC allowed the appeals of accused Rahim Swati, Amjad Hussain, Ayaz Swati and Ahmed Hussain against their sentences in the murder case and declared the sentences of the accused null and void.
In its decision, the SHC said that if the accused are not wanted in other cases, they should be released.
Rahman, who was a renowned urban planner and social activist, was murdered in a drive-by shooting on her car at the Banaras flyover a few minutes after she left her office for home on March 13, 2013.
The accused named in her murder case were sentenced to double life terms by an anti-terrorism court in December, 2021. The fifth accused, Imran Swati, was awarded a sentence of seven years for being an accomplice in the murder of Rehman.
SHC dismisses plea for inclusion of additional evidence in Perween Rahman murder case
Earlier this month, the SHC had dismissed an application filed by a complainant in Rahman’s murder case for the inclusion of additional evidence, observing that the evidence was already in the knowledge of the prosecution.
Auqila Ismail had filed application with the SHC on appeals filed by convicts against their convictions, submitting that she came to know that main appellant Mohammad Rahim Swati had also admitted to the murder in a private television channel interview.
She said the contents of the private channel’s interview materially corroborate the confession of appellant Swati and proved that the motive behind the murder was a dispute between the appellant and Rahman over a piece of land of the OPP.
The court was requested to take the additional evidence, in relation to the video recording of the interview of the appellant, by itself or direct that it be taken up by the trial court.
A division bench, headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha, after hearing the arguments of the counsel and the additional prosecutor general, observed that the additional evidence was not necessary as the trial court had already believed one of the confessions of the appellant though it was retracted by him.
Source: The News
