Plea of man serving life sentence for wife’s murder rejected

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has dismissed the appeal of a man against the life imprisonment sentence awarded to him for the murder of his wife.

Manzoor Ahmed was sentenced to life in jail by the additional district & sessions court (Central) for committing his wife Sajan’s murder in the jurisdiction of the Khawaja Ajmair Nagri police station in March 2017.

According to the prosecution, the appellant strangled his wife to death on suspicion of having an affair with another man. But the appellant’s counsel claimed that his client is innocent.

The counsel said the police wrongly implicated the appellant in the case at the instance of the complainant party on the basis of his judicial confession recorded on the third day of his arrest that he retracted and that was also in conflict with the medical evidence.

He said the appellant should be given the benefit of the doubt, adding that his client is liable to be acquitted of the charges by extending him the benefit of the doubt.

However, the additional prosecutor general supported the impugned judgment and sought the dismissal of the instant appeal by contending that the judicial confession made by the appellant was true and made voluntarily, and that it was not in conflict with the medical evidence.

After hearing the arguments of the counsel and the perusal of the evidence, a single SHC bench headed by Justice Irshad Ali Shah said the appellant had admitted his guilt before the police and the complainant.

The court said that although the incident was not seen by anybody, the complainant and his son, who were the father and the brother of the deceased, said the appellant had admitted his crime before the police in their presence.

The bench said that according to the medical evidence, the deceased was found to have suffered seven injuries on her person, and her death occurred due to the constriction of the neck as a result of strangulation, leading to a cardiorespiratory failure.

The court said the appellant had admitted to murdering his wife by strangling her with a dupatta for being disobedient and suspecting her to be in contact with someone else at a private clinic.

The bench said that the appellant’s judicial confession appears to be true and made voluntarily, so it cannot be disbelieved only for the reason that it has been retracted by the appellant during the course of his examination under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code by saying that it was obtained by putting him under pressure.

The court said that the confession is not found to be in conflict with the medical evidence to a large extent that may justify the court to make the conclusion that the deceased was killed in the manner other than the one disclosed by the appellant in his judicial confession.

The bench said that neither any of the police officials who conducted the case investigation nor the judicial magistrate who recorded the appellant’s judicial confession have any enmity with him to have him wrongly implicated in the case.

The court said that the trial court was right to make the conclusion that the prosecution had proved its case against the appellant beyond any shadow of a doubt, and that the appellant made the judicial confession admitting his guilt that is found to be true and made voluntarily.

The bench said that no illegality or irregularity has been committed by the trial court in convicting the appellant for the crime, and thus dismissed his appeal and upheld his life imprisonment sentence.