SHC acquits two ‘MQM activists’

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday acquitted two alleged activists of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) that were sentenced to life by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) for the alleged killing of police constable Aftab Shah during a strike called by the party in 2011.

A two-member bench headed by Justice Muhammad Karim Khan Agha set aside the sentence of appellants Muhammad Shoaib and Fahad Bin Shakeel. It also ordered the release of the alleged activists if they were in custody.

In its 10-page judgment authored by Justice Kausar Sultana Hussain, the bench held the identification parade of the accused was conducted six years after the crime was committed, and their confessional statement before the police was inadmissible under law.

The bench pointed out serious lacunas in the prosecution’s case including the arrest of the appellants in a blind FIR after six years of the incident, absence of forensics, no recovery of crime weapons from the accused and lack of any direct evidence from the prosecution witnesses against the appellants.

“It is a cardinal principle of criminal jurisprudence that prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt and it is not for the accused to disprove the case against him….. . It is well-settled law that if there is a single circumstance, which creates reasonable doubt in a prudent mind about the guilt of the accused, then the accused will be entitled to the benefit not as a matter of grace and concession but as a matter of right,” the bench observed in the judgment. It also remarked that no prosecution witnesses saw the accused fire upon the police party on the day of the incident.

According to the prosecution, the appellants during a strike called by the MQM on July 14, 2011, had fired on a police mobile near Ibrahim Villas in Malir that had killed police constable Aftab Shah.

ATC-X on April 28, 2021, had awarded life imprisonment to both the appellant after finding them guilty and imposed a fine of 300,000 on each of them.