Drug-pusher gets life sentence for killing journalist, another acquitted

A local court awarded life imprisonment to a person charged with murdering a local journalist Ayub Khattak in Takht-e-Nasrati area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2013 and imposed a fine of Rs 5 million.

The sentence was handed down by Karak’s District and Sessions judge Kamal Hussain Shah here the other day.

The judge awarded life imprisonment to Aminullah but acquitted his brother Khoob Niaz after hearing both the parties and public prosecutor.

The victim journalist’s brother Mukhtiar Khan had, in his complaint, submitted that Aminullah and Khoob Niaz were drug smugglers and they had shot dead his brother for filing a story on drug smuggling in the district.

Talking to media, Khattak’s brother Mukhtiar Khan and his son Shamsur Rehman showed dissatisfaction over the court’s decision, and said the killers should have been award death sentence. “We are going to challenge the minimum sentence to one accused and acquittal of the other in the Peshawar High Court,” they added.

During the trial, Akhtar Nawaz, the counsel for the complainant, contended that the journalist’s story had annoyed the drug-pushers and prior to his killing, they had hurled him life threats as well. He called the killing a brutal act and requested the court to award capital punishment to the killers of Ayub Khattak.

According to a police report, Khattak was killed by two motorcyclists when he just stepped out of his house for office in Takht-e-Nasrati area on October 11, 2013.