The Supreme Court of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) has upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of murdering his business partner in 2013, dismissing his final appeal in its Shariat Appellate Jurisdiction.
The two-member bench, comprising Justice Raza Ali Khan and Justice Khalid Yousaf Chaudhary, ruled that the prosecution had proved the case beyond any shadow of doubt and found no mitigating circumstances to justify a lesser sentence.
The incident had occurred on February 7, 2013, when the convict, Muhammad Arif, visited the residence of his business partner Zahoor in the Gojra neighbourhood of Muzaffarabad, to discuss disputes relating to their joint transport business, including vehicles and payment cheques. During the exchange, the situation escalated and Arif opened fire, inflicting fatal injuries on Zahoor, who died on the way to hospital.
The case underwent multiple stages of adjudication. In 2018, a district court in Muzaffarabad had sentenced the convict to life imprisonment under Section 302(B) of the Azad Penal Code (APC), along with fines and compensation. However, in 2023, the Shariat Appellate Bench of the High Court enhanced the sentence to death as Qisas under Section 302(A), while dismissing the convict’s appeal and accepting a revision petition filed by the victim’s family.
In his appeal before the apex court, the convict challenged the credibility of eyewitnesses, describing them as “interested” due to their relationship with the deceased. The court rejected this argument, observing that in incidents occurring within a residential setting, close relatives were often the most natural witnesses and their testimony could not be discarded solely on the basis of relationship.
The defence also contended that the prosecution had failed to establish a motive. The bench held that where reliable ocular evidence was available, the absence of a proven motive was not fatal to the prosecution’s case.
A plea regarding the convict’s alleged mental illness was likewise dismissed, with the court noting that the matter had already been settled in earlier proceedings and that medical evaluations had declared him fit.
Upholding the High Court’s ruling, the apex court reiterated that once a charge of murder under Section 302 of the APC was established, capital punishment remained the normal rule unless compelling mitigating factors existed — which, it held, were absent in the present case.
The convict-appellant and complainant respondent were respectively represented by advocates Amjad Ali Khan and Raja Gul Majeed Khan.
The judgment authored by Justice Khalid Yousaf Chaudhary was announced in Mirpur the other day.
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