An anti-terrorism court (ATC) handed down life imprisonment to Salman Abro, teenage son of a senior police officer, and his four guards for the 2014 murder of his teenage classmate, Suleman Lashari, in the upscale locality of Defence Housing Authority (DHA).
The verdict came after eight years since the brutal murder took place, sparking outrage across the city. The ATC-VII judge found Abro, the prime accused, and police guards of his father SSP Ghulam Sarwar Abro guilty of killing Lashari and injuring his private guard Ghulam Mustafa Bugti after barging into the deceased’s house on the night of May 8, 2014.
The four convicted former police guards include constables Maqbool Ahmed Brohi, Imran Ali Arain, Yaseen Jamali and Muhammad Rashid Gujjar. The judge, who conducted the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, announced the verdict he had reserved on April 5 after recording depositions and final arguments from both the defence and prosecution sides.
The court ruled that Salman could not be awarded death penalty for being a juvenile offender as per the scheme of the Section 12 of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000, and awarded him life imprisonment.
The judge also handed down an additional four-year imprisonment to each convict for wounding the deceased teenager’s security guard and damaging his house.
A collective fine of Rs250,000 was also imposed on the convicts in the judgment. In case of failure to pay the fines, the convicts would have to serve an extra 18-month imprisonment. If collected, the amount of the fine would be paid to the heirs of the deceased as compensation.
The prosecution case was that Suleman was busy in his studies on the night of May 8, 2014 when Salman and his guards stormed his house and fired shots at him. Salman was also injured and his guard constable Zaheer Rind killed when the guards deployed at Suleman’s residence returned fire.
An FIR was filed at the Darakshan police station under the sections 302 (premeditated murder), 324 (attempt to murder), 427 (mischief causing damage), and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) read with the Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
