LAHORE:
The Superior Court of Lahore (LHC) acquitted a woman already her coacked, who were convicted of murdering her husband, after the Prosecutor’s Office could not establish the case against her.
The Bank of the Division, headed by Judge Shehram Sarwar, revoked the verdict of the Court of First Instance and granted the benefit of the doubt to the accused.
The defendant, Muhammad Dilawar and Hina, were initially convicted by a court of first instance of Sargodha in relation to the murder of Muhammad Munir.
The case, registered under FIR 676/2019 on November 16, 2019, at the Jhaal Chakian Police station, was housed in sections 302, 201 and 34 of the Pakistan Criminal Code (PPC).
On December 2, 2021, the Court of First Instance condemned the accused death under section 302 (b) PPC and ordered them to pay RS1,000,000 each in compensation to the legal heirs of the deceased under section 544-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CRPC).
In addition, they were sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment under the 201 PPC and fined section with RS. 25,000 each, with a default fine of six months in simple prison.
The convicts appealed their sentences before the LHC, which discovered that the Prosecutor’s Office had not demonstrated the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Court, citing precedents of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, ruled that even a single circumstance that creates reasonable doubt is sufficient to grant an acquittal.
In this case, the Court indicated that multiple inconsistencies and doubts in the prosecution’s evidence made the case reliable.
According to the FIR, the case was initiated based on a complaint by Muhammad Zaheer, the deceased’s brother.
He said that his brother, Muhammad Munir, had married Hina Bibi on July 27, 2019, but suspected that he had an illegal relationship with the coacusado, Dilawar.
Munir had supposedly warned Hina and Dilawar about his relationship, but ignored his objections.
On November 1, 2019, Munir and Hina attended a wedding ceremony in the Fatima Jinnah neighborhood, but Munir then disappeared. A search for him proved to be useless.
