A day after the civilian, sentenced for life in the case of extrajudicial murder of Sarfaraz Shah, challenged his punishment in the Sindh High Court (SHC), the other six convicted Rangers personnel also moved the SHC on Wednesday against their convictions – handed out by an anti-terrorism court (ATC).
Three different lawyers representing the six paramilitary soldiers moved the applications on their behalf, pleading the court to set aside the verdict.
Advocate Shaukat Hayat filed an application on behalf of Constable Shahid Zafar – sentenced to death by the ATC for being directly involved in the killing of an unarmed youth in a public park. Sub-inspector Bahaur Rehman, Lance Naik Liaquat Ali and Constable Mohammad Afzal submitted their applications through counsel Advocate Mehmoodul Alam Rizvi. Advocate Habib Ahmed filed the applications on behalf of constables Mohammad Tariq and Manthar Ali.
Apart from Zafar, all other convicts were sentenced for life in prison on the same offence.
In their applications, the plaintiffs expressed their dissatisfaction over the proceedings of the case conducted in the ATC, as the case did not come under the domain of the special court.
They stated that the judgements were not given on merit, as according to them, the required legal formalities were avoided by the court during the case proceedings. They further submitted that the evidences produced in the court were misleading, and the verdicts were passed only on the basis of a video footage and evidences that were not enough.
On August 12, an ATC had awarded death sentence to a Rangers constable and life imprisonment to six others, including private contractor Afsar Khan, while also imposing a fine of Rs 200,000 on the convicts.
On Tuesday, Afsar had challenged the ATC’s verdict in the SHC, pleading to set aside the special court’s verdict and declare him innocent, as he was not involved in killing the unarmed youth.
