Noor Mukadam homicide : IHC upholds trial court docket’s verdict, turns Zahir Jaffer’s jail time period right into a second dying penalty – Pakistan
The Islamabad Excessive Court docket (IHC) on Wednesday not solely upheld the dying sentence of Zahir Jaffer within the Noor Mukadam homicide case, but additionally transformed his 25-year jail time period into one other dying penalty.
A two-member division bench comprising IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Sardar Ijaz Ishaq Khan introduced the decision at present which was earlier reserved on Dec 21.
In its judgement at present, the IHC rejected Zahir’s plea whereas additionally dismissing the pleas of his family employees Mohammad Iftikhar and Mohammad Jan — each co-accused within the case — who had challenged the trial court docket’s verdict.
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Noor, 27, was found murdered at Jaffar’s residence within the capital’s upscale Sector F-7/4 on July 20 final 12 months. A primary data report (FIR) was registered the identical day in opposition to Zahir Jaffer — the first accused who was arrested from the location of the homicide — beneath Part 302 (premeditated homicide) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the criticism of the sufferer’s father, Shaukat Mukadam, who’s a retired diplomat.
On Feb 24, 2022, an Islamabad periods court docket sentenced Zahir to dying and awarded 10-year imprisonment to 2 co-accused Mohammad Iftikhar and Jan Mohammad.
Zahir’s dad and mom — father Zakir Jaffer and mom Asmat Adamji — in addition to TherapyWorks personnel, had been indicted by an Islamabad district and periods court docket in October 2021 however had been later acquitted by the periods court docket when Jaffer was sentenced.
Following the decision, Zahir had approached the IHC in March 2022 difficult his dying sentence.
Case history
After a first information report was registered in the case and Zahir was arrested, his parents and household staff were also taken into custody by police on July 24 over allegations of “hiding evidence and being complicit in the crime”. They were made a part of the investigation based on Noor’s father’s statement.
In his complaint, Shaukat had stated that he had gone to Rawalpindi on July 19 to buy a goat for Eidul Azha, while his wife had gone out to pick up clothes from her tailor. When he had returned home in the evening, the couple found their daughter Noor absent from their house in Islamabad.
They had found her cellphone number switched off and started a search for her. Sometime later, Noor had called her parents to inform them that she was travelling to Lahore with some friends and would return in a day or two, according to the FIR.
The complainant said he had later received a call from Zahir, whose family were their acquaintances. Zahir had informed Shaukat that Noor was not with him, the FIR said.
At around 10pm on July 20, the victim’s father had received a call from Kohsar police station, informing him that Noor had been murdered.
Police had subsequently taken the complainant to Zahir’s house in Sector F-7/4 where he discovered that his “daughter has been brutally murdered with a sharp-edged weapon and beheaded”, according to the FIR.
Shaukat, who identified his daughter’s body, has sought the maximum punishment under the law against Zahir for allegedly murdering his daughter.
Police later said that Zahir had confessed to killing Noor while his DNA test and fingerprints also showed his involvement in the murder.
Six officials of Therapy Works, whose employees had visited the site of the murder before police, were also nominated in the case and were indicted with six others, including Zahir Jaffer’s parents, in October.
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