Al-Qaeda militant gets death sentence for triple murder
An anti-terrorism court on Thursday awarded a double death sentence to an Al-Qaeda militant, convicting him of killing three Tableeghi Jamaat preachers, including two Moroccan nationals, outside a mosque in North Nazimabad in 2013.
The ATC-VI judge also sentenced Sohail Ahmed Siddiqui to seven years in jail for keeping an illicit weapon, five years for injuring two people in the same firing incident, and as many years for causing violence. He also was fined a total of Rs60,000, besides being ordered to pay a compensation amount of Rs200,000 to each of the victims.
Siddiqui was arrested by Rangers on October 8, 2014, from a godown in North Nazimabad and was taken into preventive detention for 90 days. According the paramilitary force, arms and ammunitions were found on him. He was implicated in the case later reportedly following his confession.
The firing incident took place outside Madni Masjid in Block I of the neighborhood on December 3, 2018.
Two Moroccans, Khitab-ul-Awadi and Abdul Majeed-ur-Ratwi, and their Pakistani companion Muhammad Sulaiman were killed while two other locals, Shahrukh and Qari Hanif, were injured as armed men on motorcycles ambushed them with firearms. The victims were returning to the mosque after preaching.
According to the prosecution, Siddiqui admitted the guilt during interrogation with police and disclosed the names of his accomplices as Asif and Saad. “He disclosed that he stashed away his 9mm pistol in a plant nursery near Ship Owners College Chowrangi (which was later recovered).”
He, on the other hand, claimed innocence and stated that he was picked up by Rangers from the godown owned by his wife, as a Sunni Tehreek activist who wanted to grab the property plotted against him. He contradicted the prosecution account and said that he was kept in a room for over three months and was never taken out.
The court examined 12 witnesses, a forensic report of the weapon and the empties and other evidences and found them convincing against the defendants. The judge remarked that the prosecution established its case beyond shadow of doubt as Siddiqui was proven guilty.
The court, however, extended the benefit of Section 382(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure to the convict to run all his sentences concurrently. Meanwhile, the case against the absconding suspects was put on dormant until their arrest.
The FIRs were registered under sections 302, 324 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act and Section 23(1)A of the Sindh Arms Act at the Shahrah-e-Noor Jehan police station.
The Rangers in a press release issued on Thursday had mentioned that Siddiqui was affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
Source: Thenews
