Two LeJ militants handed down death penalty for killing lawyer

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Thursday sentenced two Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militants to death in an eight-year-old case of a lawyer’s killing in a sectarian attack outside a former judge’s residence.The ATC-VI judge awarded capital punishment to Jameel Ahmed and Muneer Ahmed after finding them guilty of killing the lawyer, Zain-ul-Abideen. The convicted men were also sentenced to 10-year imprisonment for an encounter with the police.Zain, 30, was shot by three men in a Suzuki Cultus when he was parking his car outside the house of a former judge of the Sindh High Court, Zawar Hussain Jafferi, a friend of his father, in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Block 5 on November 4, 2011.After the shots were fired, Ali Hassan, a guard of the former judge, rushed out of the bungalow and saw that Zain was in a pool of blood and the assailants were fleeing. The guard opened fire on the car of the assailants. In the meantime, the assailants’ car collided with a rickshaw, which made them abandon their car and run to escape arrests.A mobile van of the Gulshan-e-Iqbal police station, which happened to be in the area at the time and had been alerted by the gunshots, headed for the scene of the crime and signalled the assailants to surrender.Upon seeing the police mobile, the assailants opened fire on the police van. The police returned fire and arrested two of the suspects while one of them managed to flee. The police seized three TT pistols and one Kalashnikov rifle found on them.The lawyer was hit by eight bullets. He was shifted to Aga Khan University Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. The body was later shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal formalities.According to the police, Zain had gone to the former judge’s house to take him to a mosque for Juma prayers. As he reached the house, Zain asked the guard to inform the judge about his arrival. Just as the judge and his guard were coming out of the house, they heard the gunshots.The ATC judge observed that the prosecution successfully established its case against the accused “beyond any shadow of doubt”.The FIR of the incident was registered under the sections 302 (premeditated murder), 324 (attempting to murder), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 read with the Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 at the Gulshan-e-Iqbal police station.

from The News International - Karachi http://bit.ly/2JFhSQ2