- Image Credit: AFP
- Shahrukh Jatoi (C) gestures as he leaves a court after being convicted for murder in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on June 7, 2013. A judge in Pakistan sentenced the son of a powerful businessman to death for murdering a young man in a case that prompted public outrage and a Supreme Court intervention. Jatoi was convicted along with accomplice Siraj Talpur of killing the son of a senior police officer in Karachi in December 2012.
Karachi: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Friday handed death sentences to a son of an influential man and his accomplice for murdering a young man in cold blood last year and fleeing abroad conveniently, prompting the apex court of Pakistan to step in to ensure justice.
Judge Mustafa Memon of the ATC awarded death sentence to 19-year Sharukh Jatoi, who is the son of a wealthy man having strong clout in the power corridors.
Another accused Siraj Talpur was given capital punishment whereas Sajjad Talpur and Ghulam Murtaza Lashari, the two other co-accuseds were given life imprisonment.
The young Jatoi came out of the court smiling and waving the sign of victory as his hands were handcuffed.
Public prosecutor Abdul Maroof said the judge awarded Shahrukh Jatoi and Siraj Talpur with the death sentence and half a million rupees fine to each convict.
Witnesses told the court earlier that Jatoi and his three accomplices chased and shot Khan to punish him for roughing up their servant who teased Khan’s sister while returning home from a wedding in December 2012 in a posh area of this southern port city.
All the four accused pleaded not guilty and defended the case in the court. Their lawyer said the ATC verdict was not acceptable to them and they would go to an appellant court to get the verdict reversed.
“This verdict is not acceptable to us,” said Shaukat Zuberi, the defence lawyer of Jatoi.
“We will file the appeal in the high court within seven days once we get the detailed judgement,” he told the media.
Maroof said they would counter the appeal in the high court.
The influential family of Jatoi did not allow police to register a murder case enraging civil society that rallied at the roads for several days until the chief justice of Pakistan took the notice of the murder.
The case became a hallmark in this mega city where average 250 people are murdered every month for past several years with a negligible prosecution.
Jatoi’s father, Sikandar Ali Jatoi owns a cement factor in Hyderabad and also owns Awaz TV channel. He is said to be the major recipient of huge contracts of National Highway Authority (NHA) in the past five years.
It was talk of the town that rich Sikandar Jatoi was offering hundreds of millions of rupees as blood money to the family of Khan as a compensation. It is also said that the victim’s family was under pressure to accept the offer.
The family rejected the option.
“There was no pressure on us from anywhere,” Aurangzeb Khan, the father of the murdered youth told media outside his apartment.
Khan’s mother who stood by her husband said nothing could have compensated their loss and she wanted to see the murderers executed to become an example.
“We took stand for the children of the nation and for their safety as no son of rich men could dare repeat it,” Ambreen Khan, the mother said.
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