KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday overturned the life imprisonment sentence handed down to four appellants by the trial court in a kidnapping for ransom case.

The high court observed that it was a weak case of kidnapping for ransom, as the accused persons remained unidentified at the time of lodging the FIR, and their identification parade was also not held in accordance with the law, making the whole case highly doubtful.

An anti-terrorism court had sentenced Amjad Jawed alias Choudhary Amjad, his son Mumraiz Hussain, Zahoor Illah and Zaheer alias Siddique to life in prison in August last year for abducting Mohammad Arif from his house in New Karachi in June 2023 and later releasing the captive after collecting ransom.

The convicts, through their lawyers, impugned the conviction before the SHC and, after hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings of the case, a two-judge bench comprising Justice Omar Sial and Justice Miran Muhammad Shah allowed the appeals and set aside the conviction order.

Sets aside conviction over flawed identification parade and delays in FIR registration

The bench, in its judgment, said that, admittedly, there was a delay of 30 days in the registration of FIR, and no plausible explanation had been given in this regard, while there was a further delay of 14 days in conducting the identification parade.

Apart from the issue of the identification parade, it noted that there were material contradictions in the evidence brought on record, and two key witnesses the wife and nephew of the captive did not participate in any identification parade and claimed to have identified the accused persons only at the time of the incident and such identification has no evidentiary value.

The bench also observed that the identification parade was not held in line with Article 22 of the Qanun-e-Shahdat Order, as a joint identification parade of the accused persons was held, which was against the law and had no evidentiary value.

It further noted that the car, in which the abductee was allegedly taken away, was said to have been recovered and taken into possession, but no record or evidence of such recovery was brought before the trial court.

After the arrest of appellants, the bench further observed that the identification parade was held for three out of four appellants which was indeed a clear anomaly on the part of the prosecution whereas, the parade of the three accused persons was also not conducted in accordance with the law, making the whole prosecution case highly doubtful and such benefit of the doubt must be given to the accused as dicta laid down by the superior courts.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2025