Admitting appeals from six Rangers officials and a civilian convicted for involvement in the murder of an unarmed youth as maintainable, the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday issued notice to the Sindh Prosecutor General, directing him to produce the complete case record before the court.
On August 12, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) had awarded death sentence to Rangers officer Shahid Zafar and life terms for six others, while also imposing a fine of Rs 200,000 on the accused. Lawyers representing the convicts challenged their sentences in the SHC, pleading to set aside the ATC verdict.
In his preliminary arguments, civilian Afsar Khan’s counsel had said that all accused were innocent and performing their lawful duty. They were falsely implicated in a terrorism case and the ATC proceedings were totally illegal.
The counsel prayed the court to declare the convicts’ appeals as maintainable for the sake of justice.
Advocate Shaukat Hayat also filed an application on behalf of Zafar. Sub-Inspector Bahaur Rehman, Muhammad Afzal and Liaquat Ali submitted their applications through their counsel Advocate Mehmoodul Alam Rizvi. Muhammad Tariq and Manthar Ali moved their pleas through their lawyer Advocate Habib Ahmed.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the ATC proceedings, the applicants stated that the case did not come in the domain of such a special court. The judgments were not given on merit as, according to them, the required legal formalities were avoided by the court. They also stated that the evidences produced by defence lawyers in the court were misleading and judgments were passed only on basis of a video footage and evidences that were not enough.
