The Sindh High Court on Thursday issued a notice to the home secretary and provincial prison chiefs of Sindh and Baluchistan provinces to submit comments on a petition filed by wife of Saulat Mirza, a death row convict associated with Muttahida Qaumi Movement, seeking deferment of his hanging.
A division bench, headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, directed the provincial law officers to file comments of the authorities by Friday.
The petitioner, Nighat Jafar Malik, moved the court requesting it to hold in abeyance execution of the convict until an inquiry against other accused persons in Shahid Hamid murder case is carried out.
The petitioner submitted that her spouse disclosed in his video statement the names of the actual accused behind the murder of Shahid Hamid. Subsequently, his hanging was postponed and a joint investigation team was constituted to grill the convict with regards to his allegations. She added he had disclosed the same details regarding the murder before the JIT.
She stated that her spouse would help bring other accused persons to justice, adding that if he is hanged, the evidence would be buried and no one else would dare to speak the truth. The woman pleaded to the court to reopen the murder case and defer Mirza’s hanging.
Saulat was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court in Karachi on May 24, 1999, for murdering Shahid Hamid, the then managing director of the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), his driver, and guard on July 5, 1997 in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA), a neighbourhood of Karachi.
The SHC had dismissed his appeal in 2000 whereas the Supreme Court also turned down his plea in 2001. A review petition was rejected by the apex court in 2004. The convict’s mercy appeal was recently rejected by the president.