Lahore:
The High Court of Lahore (LHC) acquired a woman and her co-accused, who was found guilty of having murdered her husband, after the accusation did not establish the case against them.
The division bench, led by judge Shehram Sarwar, canceled the verdict of the court of first instance and granted the benefit of the doubt to the accused.
The accused, Muhammad Dilawar and Hina, was initially sentenced by a court of first instance of Sargodha within the framework of the murder of Muhammad Munir.
The case, recorded under the FIR 676/2019 on November 16, 2019, at the police station, Jhaal Chakian, was filed under articles 302, 201 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
On December 2, 2021, the court of first instance sentenced both to death under article 302 (B) PPC and ordered them to pay 1,000,000 rupees each in compensation to the legal heirs of the deceased under article 544-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CRPC).
In addition, they were sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment under article 201 ppc and amended of Rs. 25,000 each, with a default sentence of six months of simple imprisonment.
The convicts appealed their sentence before the LHC, who concluded that the accusation had not proven the accusations beyond reasonable doubt.
The court, quoting precedents from the Supreme Court of Pakistan, judged that even a single circumstance creating a reasonable doubt is sufficient to grant an acquittal.
In this case, the Court noted that multiple inconsistencies and doubts in the evidence of the accusation made the case unreliable.
According to the FIR, the case was initiated on the basis of a complaint by Muhammad Zaheer, the brother of the deceased.
He said that his brother, Muhammad Munnir, had married Hina Bibi on July 27, 2019, but suspected him of having an illegal relationship with the co-accused, Dilawar.
Munir would have warned Hina and Dilawar of their relationship, but they ignored his objections.
On November 1, 2019, Munir and Hina attended a wedding ceremony in the colony of Fatima Jinnah, but Munnir disappeared later. A search for him turned out to be futile.
