Extortionist who killed factory manager gets death sentence

A man who was identified by his mother as the shooter in a chilling murder video was convicted and sentenced to death on Thursday by an anti-terrorism court as he was found guilty on all the charges, while his two accomplices were sentenced to life in prison.

The ATC-II awarded capital punishment to Abdul Rahim who killed Saleemuddin, the factory manager of Islam Designers in New Karachi, on January 7, 2015, over non-payment of extortion and sent Ahmed Hasan and Anwar Baloch, who provided backup to Rahim, to jail for life.

According to the police record, at the time of the offence, Rahim was working for the Pakistan Sunni Tehreek. He along with his accomplices had gone to the factory to collect extortion money of Rs2,000, but shot the manager dead when he asked them to come back later.

As the video of the incident was run by news channels, the mother of the prime suspect identified her son and reported it to the police who managed to arrest him around three weeks later. The suspect also confessed to his crime before a judicial magistrate.

While announcing its verdict on Thursday, the court also fined Rahim Rs100,000 and the other two Rs50,000 each. Failure to pay will result in Rahim spending another year in prison before execution, while the other two will spend six additional months in jail.

The case was registered at Gabol Town police station under sections 384 (punishment for extortion), 385 (putting a person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion), 302 (premeditated murder), 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.