The Supreme Court confirmed on Tuesday the death sentence of Zahir Jaffer for the horrible murder of Noor Mukadam almost four years ago that he had shaken the nation.
Noor, 27, was found murdered in the Residence of Islamabad de Zahir in July 2021, with the investigation revealing that she was tortured before being beheaded. Zahir’s death sentence by the Court of First Instance had already been confirmed by the Superior Court of Islamabad (IHC).
Judge Hashim Kakar today led a three -members bank, which included Judges Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Ali Baqar Najafi.
The Bank confirmed Zahir’s death sentence delivered by two courts previously for murder charges under section 302 (b) (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Criminal Code (PPC).
However, he reversed the IHC decision to convert the 25 years of rigorous imprisonment of Zahir under section 376 of the PPC for charges for rape in a second death penalty.
The lawyer Salman Safdar appeared as Zahir’s lawyer while lawyer Shah Khawar was present in the name of Noor’s father, retired diplomat Shaukat Mukadam. Safdar concluded his arguments today, while Khawar also presented his own.
The appeals of the condemned coacuse in the case were also taken. An appeal of Shaukat against the acquittal of Zahir’s father, Zakir Jaffer, was also one of the pleas to be heard. A detailed order on these pleas has not yet been issued.
At the beginning of the hearing, Zahir’s lawyer said that any evidence against his client “must be out of doubt”, arguing that the court could not “go beyond the images presented in the court.”
He said the prosecution presented the images in a USB at the IHC, but could not be played.
At this point, a Coacusado lawyer, Mohammad Iftikhar (Watchman) and Jan Mohammad (gardener), whose 10 -year -old sentences were also confirmed by the IHC, presented their arguments briefly.
The lawyer detailed the sentences, remembering that the vigilante and the gardener were accused of “preventing the victim from fleeing.”
Judge Najafi observed: “If the suspects had not stopped the victim, then the situation would have been different.”
The lawyer said that the two embedded did not have “another crime than to be present at home” at the time of murder.
“What was the need to work more than [what] The salary [is paid for]? “Judge Kakar commented.
When the audience resumed in the afternoon after a break, Noor’s father’s lawyer presented his arguments.
During the previous hearing, the defendant’s lawyer said that no medical board was formed to evaluate the mental state of his client. Judge Kakar had observed: “A daughter was murdered mercilessly.”
In October of last year, Noor’s father had urged SC to occupy the case of murder waiting for more than a year and a half in the upper court.
Case history
Noor, 27, was found murdered in a residence in the exclusive sector F-7/4 of Islamabad on July 20, 2021. A FIR was later recorded on the same day against Zahir Jaffer, who was arrested at the site of the murder.
In February 2022, a district judge and sessions sentenced Jaffer to death for the murder and handed him 25 years of rigorous imprisonment, finding him guilty of rape. The personnel of his home, Mohammad Iftikhar and Jan Mohammad, coacked in the case, were sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Zahir’s parents, the main businessman Zakir Jaffer and Asmat Adamji, had been accused by a district of Islamabad and a session court in October 2021, but were then acquitted by the court.
Six therapy works officials, whose employees had visited the murder site before the Police, were also among those accused by the lower court, but were then released from the charges together with the parents. According to the Challan, the parents and the therapy workers tried to hide the crime and tried to destroy the evidence.
In March 2023, the IHC, dismissing the appeal of the Zahir, not only confirmed the death sentence, but also turned his mandate of the 25 -year jail into another death penalty. The IHC had also rejected the supplications of the main suspect personnel challenging his conviction.
The following month, Zahir approached the SC against the IHC verdict, insisting that his conviction resulted from the “erroneous appreciation” of the evidence of the case and the Superior Court and the Court of First Instance could not identify the “fundamental failures” in the FIR.
Brutal murder
After a FIR was recorded in the case and Zahir was arrested, his parents and his home personnel were also arrested by the police on July 24, 2021 for accusations of “hiding evidence and being complicit in the crime.” They became part of the investigation based on the declaration of the father of Noor, but then they were acquitted.
In his complaint, Shaukat had declared that he had gone to Rawalpindi on July 19 to buy a goat for Eidul Azha, while his wife had gone out to collect clothes from his tailor. When he returned home at night, the couple found their daughter Noor absent from her home in Islamabad.
They had found their cell phone number off and began a search for it. Some time later, Noor had called his parents to inform them that he was traveling to Lahore with some friends and that he would return in one or two days, according to the FIR.
The plaintiff said he had later received a call from Zahir, whose family was his acquaintances. Zahir had informed Shaukat that Noor was not with him, said the FIR.
Around 10 pm on July 20, the victim’s father had received a call from the Kohsar police station, informing him that Noor had been killed.
Subsequently, the police had taken the plaintiff to Zahir’s house in the F-7/4 sector, where he discovered that “her daughter has been brutally murdered with a gun and beheaded with sharp edges,” according to the FIR.
Shaukat, who identified his daughter’s body, had sought the maximum punishment under the law against Zahir for allegedly killing his daughter.
Later, the police said that Zahir had confessed to kill Noor, while his DNA test and his digital footprints also showed their participation in the murder.
More to follow
