IFTIKHAR AHMED @ BADSHAH S/O MUHAMMAD SHAREEF (Appellant) VS THE STATE (Respondent)

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THE HIGH COURT OF SINDH, KARACHI

CRIMTNAL JArL APPEAL NO. 361 OF 2019

CONFIRMATION CASE NO. 07 OF 2019

Prcsent:

Mr. lustice Mohammad Kaim Khan Agha Mr. lustice lrshad Ali Shah

Appellant Iftikhar Al-rmed @ Badshah ttuough Mr Shamsul Haq Rashidi, Advocate

Respondent: The State through Mr. Mohammad Iqbal Awan, Additional Prosecutor General

Date of hearing 29.09.202-L and 30.09.202L

Date of announcement 05.70.202-t.

TUDGMENT

t MOHAMMAD KARIM KHAN AGHA, I- A ppellant Iftikhar Ahmed @ Baclshah son of Muhamrnad Shareef has preferred the instant appeal against the impugned judgment dated 09.05.2019, passed by learned Ist Additional Sessions Judge (Model Criminal Trial Court) Karachi South in S.C.No. 306 of 201,0 (State Vs. Iftikhar Ahmed @ Badshah) arising out of FIR No. 524/20'10, for offences punishable under Sections 302/397/376 PPC registered at f'}S Boat Basin Karachi, whereby, after full-dressed trial, the appellant was convicted under Section 265-H(2) and awarded seParate cleatlr sentences under sections 302 (b) PPC and 376 PPC, subject to the confirmation by this Court. Appellant was also directed to Pay compensation of Rs. 72,00,000 / - to the legal heirs of the deceased as requirecl under Section 544-4 Cr.P.C. [n case of default, he was ordered to suffer S.I for six months more. Appellant was also convicted and sentenced for committing an offence punishable u/ s.397 PPC to undergo R.L for seven (07) years and he was also directed to Pay comPensation of Rs, 10,000/- or in default he was ordered to suffer S.I for six months mdre.

Benefit of Section 382-8 Cr.PC is also extended to the appellant. All the sentences were ordered to be run concurrently.

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2.Precisely the facts of the prosecution case as per FIR lodged by complainant Riaz Mahmood son of Abclul Latif, through his statement recorded under section 154, Cr.P.C. on 09.09.20210 at 0100 hours inside lnortuary of linnah Hospital, are that he resided at his given address and was doing garments business. Ile further stated that on 08.09.2010 at about 10:30 at night Waqar @ Vicky called his son Azeem Shahzad on phone informing him that complainant's brother Khalid Haroon, his wife Annela, his daughter Maryam and son Danish were murdered by sorleone inside FIat No.A/3, Cl'rapel Beach Luxury Apartment and their clead boclies were lying there. The complainant further stated that such information was conveyed to him, therefore, he along with his other son namely Waseem reachecl at the house of his brother Khalid Haroon, where he came to know that clead bodies of those four deceased were shifted to Jinnah Hospital through Chippa ambulance. The complainant reached there and saw dead bodies of Khalid Haroon and Danish lying in mortuary, whereas dead bodies of his sister in law Mst' Anila and her daughter Mst. Maryam wele shifted to Civil Hospital Karachi. The complainant further states that now he reports that there was no enmity of his brother but unknown persons for unknown grudge has committed murder of four persons inside the house, therefore, he claims for action.

3.During investigation the present appeilant was arrested and after usual investigations challan was submitted before concerned court of law as well as charge read over to him which he denied and further stated that he was falsely implicated in this case. He ctaimed to be innocent and prayed for trial.

4.In order to prove its case, the prosecution examined 15 witnesses, who exhibited numerous documents and other items and thereafter prosecution side was closed. Thereafter, the statement of the appellant was recorcled under section 342 Cr.PC irr which he deniecl the allegations and claimecl his false implication. He however did not examine himself on oath or call any DW's in suPport of his defence,

5.On conclusion ofthe trial, learned trial court after hearing learned counsel for the parties and appraisal of prosecution evidence brought on record, convicted and sentenced the appellant/accused as mentioned earlier in this judBment vidT

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judgment dated 09.05.2019 hence the appellant has filed this appeal against his convlctlon

6.Learned counsel for the appellant has contended that there was a delay in lodging the FIR which leacl to the complainant along with the police falsely implicating the appellant in this casei that the appellant was not narned in the FIR; that there was no eye witness to the offences; that no rnurder weapon had been recovered from the appellant who had been arrestecl after a delay of 13 c'lays of the incident that the recoveries had been foisted on him ancl for any of tl-re above reasons the appellant should be acquitted of the cl'rarge bv extending hirn the benefit of the doubt. In support of l-ris contentions he has placed reliance on the cases of Ghulam Abbas and another v. the State and another (2021 SCMR 23), Altaf Hussain v. The State (2019 SCMR 274) and Muhammad Abid v. The State and another (PLD 2018 Supreme Court 813).

7.On the other hand learned Addl. Prosecutor General who was also representing the complainant fully supPorted the impugned judgment and contended that the case was based on last seen evidence by persotrs who knew the appellant wetl; that the appellant's car was in the vicinity of the place of incident during its occurrence; that the murder weapon being the iron bar had been lecoveled from the scene; that two sets of recoveries from the robbery of the deceased from their flat and persons had been made on pointation of tl-re appellant at his own flat and in his car and that the DNA swabs taken from the vagina of the deceased Maryam had matchetl with the DNA of the appellant ancl as such the prosecution had proved its case beyoncl a reasonable doubt against the appellant and as such his appeal shoulcl be disrnissed and his conviction and sentence maintairrecl. He stressed that due to the cold bloodied and unprovoked attack on four person (two fernale and two male) which lead to their death ancl the rape of the deceasecl Maryam and the robbery from the flat and persons o{ the deceased the death sentence was fully attracted in this case. In support of his contentions he has placed reliance on the cases of Imran AIi v. The State (2018 SCMI{ 1372), Atit Zateef. and others v' The State (PLD 2021Supreme Court 550), AIi Haider alias Papu v' Iameel Hussain and others (PLD 2027 Supreme Court 362), Sh. Muhammad Amjad v' The State (I'LD 2003 Supreme Court 704), Ghulam Farooq v' The State (2015 SCMR 9.18), Dadutlah and another v. The State (2015 SCMR 856),. t

MAIPS

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|afar AIi v. The State (1998 SCMR 2669), Ijaz Ahmad v. The State (2009 SCMR 99), Muhammad Ishaq & another v. The State (SBLR 2019 Sindh 1603) ancl an unreported jtrdgment of this Court in Special Criminal A.T. Appeal No.175 of 2019, Confirmation Case No.,07 of 2019.

B. We have hearcl the arguments of the learned counsel for the parties, gone through the entire evidence which has been read out by the appellant's counsel, the impugnecl judgrnent with their able assistance ancl have consiclered the relevant law including that cited at the bar.

g. Based on our reasscssment of the evidence of the PW's, PW Dr' Rosheen Hasan MLO who appearecl twice and gave separate evidence as PW 7 and 9 relating to the CoD of the deceased, post mortems and other meclical reports, recovery of the deacl bodies at the scene, recovery of bloocl at the scene which lead to a positive chemical rePort, recovery of bloodied iron bar at the scene we fincl that the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable cloubt that I(ralid Haroon, Danesh, Anela and Maryam (collectively referrecl to as the deceased) were all murdered by \ being hit over their head and other body Parts with an iron bar at about 2230 hours on 08.09.2010 at Flat No.A-03 Chappel Luxury Apartment Block 4 Clifton Kalachi

10.The only questions left before us are (a) who murdered the tleceaseel by hitting them with the iron bar over their heads and other

body parts which lead to their murcler (b) whether the deceased were robbect along with items from their flat and by whom and (c) whether deceasecl Maryam was raped and by whom before her murder at the said

time, date and location.

-11,. After our reassessment of the evidence we find that the prosecution appellant has provecl beyond a reasonable doubt the charge against the he was convicted (narnely the murder of the deceased' the for which robbery of the deceased and iterns from their flat and the rape of deceased

Maryam) for the following reasons;

(u)Tl.rat the 5.154 Statement was recorded by the complainant to *itl-,i.t 3 hours of the incident despite their being no eye witness Even the incident ancl thus the FIR was lodged with promptitude' otherwise tl-re complainant had no enmity with the appellant and The FIR is agains!

hael no reason to impiicate him in a false case'

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unknown persons which would not l-tave been the case if the aim of tl-re FIR was to falsely implicate the appellant'

(b)Admitteclly there was no eye witness to the murders, robbery a}rd rape of Maiyam. This prosecution case starts on the basis of last seen evidence.

The law on last seen evidence was laid clown by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Fayyaz Ahmed v state (2017 SCMR 2026) at P.2030 at Para 7 where it was held as uncler regarding last seen evidence;

"The last seen evidence is one of such categories of evidence. In this category of cases some fundamental principles must be followed and the Prosecution is under-legal obligation to fulfill the same, some of which may be cited below:-

(i)There must be cogent reasons that the deceased iu normal and oidinary course was supposed to accomPany the accused and those reasons must be paipaUte and prima facie furnished by the Prosecution.

(ii)seen plays a vital -becnrs" of the crime The proximity rolu if within a short distance the deceasecl is done to death then, ordinarily the inference would be that he did not Part ways or separated from the accused and onus in this regard woulcl shif t to the accused to furnish those circumstances under which, the deceased lef t him ar-rd parted ways in the course of transit.

(iii)The tirning of that the deceased was Iast seen with the accused and subsequently his murder, rnust be reasonably close to each other to exclude any possibility of the cleceased getting away from the accused or the accused getting awaY from him' (i") There must be sotne reasons and objects on account of which the deceased accompanied tire accusecl for accomplishment of the same towards a particular destination, otherwise giving company by the deceased to the accused would become a question mark'

(v)Additionally there must be some motive on the \r part of the accused to kill the deceased ttherwise the Prosecution has to furnish evidence that it was during the transit that sornething happened abnormal or unpleasant which mltivutua tn" accused in killing the deceased.,

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("i) The quick reporting of the matter without any unciue clelay is essential, otherwise the prosecution story would become tloubtful for the reason that the story of last seen was tailored or designed falsely, involving accused Persoll.

Beside the above, circumstantial evidence of last seell nrust be corroborated by independent evidence, coming from unimpeachable source because uncorroborated last seen evidence is a weak type of evidence in cases involving capital punishrnent.

(vii)The recovery of the crime weaPon from the accused ancl the opinion of the expert must be carried out in a transparent and fair manner to exclude all possible doubts, which may arise if it is not done in a ProPer and fair manner.

(viii)The Court has also to seriously consider that whethel the cleceased was having any contributory role in the cause of his death inviting the trouble., if it was not a pre-planned and calculated murder."(Bold added) In the later case of Muhammed Abid V State (PLD 2018 SC 813) which delved further into the doctrine of "last seen together" evidence it was held by the supreme court as under at P.817 Para 6:

"The founclation of the "last seen together" theory is based on principles of probability and cause and connection and requires 1. cogent reasons that the cleceased in normal and ordinary course was suPPosed to accompany the accused. 2, proximity of the crime scene. 3. small time gap between the sighting and crime. 4. no possibility of third person interference 5. motive 6. time of death of victim. The circumstance of last seen together does not by itself necessarily lead to the inf erence that it was the accused who committed the crime. There must be something more establishing connectivity between the accused and the crime" (bold aclclecl).

Llaving stated the law on last seen evidence above we need to consider whether the evidence on record brings this case within the ambit of last seen evidence which we shall do by examining the ev idence;,

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(r)From the evidence of PW Riaz Muhammed, PW 2 Arshad Tanvir, PW 3 Syed Waqar Hussain , PW 5 Huma Nayab, PW 6 Bimish Hira and PW 8 Syed Shamseer AIi none of whom had any enmity or ill will towards the appellant and had no reason to falsely implicate him in this case although all bar PW 8 Syed Shimsheer AIi were related to the deceased the picture emerges that the appellant was treated like an adopted ,o., lry cleceased Khalid and his wife Anila who had been with them for 10 to 11 years and mostly resided with them at their flat which was the scene of the incident apart from occasionally going to his own flat from time to time. All these PW's therefore knew the appellant weli and he knew them well and this fact has .tti b""., disputed by the appellant'The fact that the PW's were mostly related to the deceased does not mean that there evidence cannot be relied upon' This is because there was no ill will or enmity between them and the appellant. In fact they treated the appellant as a friend and a family member. In this resPect reliance is placed on Ijaz Ahmed V State (2009 SCMR 99)'

(ii)According to the evidence of PW 3 Syed Waqar Hussain iuho *ut the son in law of deceased Khalid having married one of his daughters (PW 5 Huma Nayab) one clay prior to the incident he had gone .tloppi.g wlth his wife PW 5 Huma Nayab and pr..ftut"a ardficial jewellery gifts {o' deceased ir4aryam.I-Ie and his wife then went to the deceased's flat [o cleliver the gifts at 1 or 1'30am on the day of the inciclent anct the front door was opened by the appellant who let them in. The persons in the flat were ail'usluep except the appellant' Deceased Danesh was asleep ut'ra tft" uppellanl went away to sleep with him' l-te and his wife woke up deceased Maryam and gave her the gifts which they had brought for her' They were let out liy deceased I(halicl. Before leaving they saw the appellant's van was parked outsjde- th^e Jlat' PW 5 Firr,-,u Nayab who is the wife of PW 3 Syed Waqar Hussain and daughter of deceased Khalid and Anila corroborates her husband PW 3 Syed Waqar Hussain in all material respects regarding the purchase of the artificial jewellery, delivering it to her sister Maryam at 2am on tire next day, the appellant opening the door of the flat to let them in and that when she left the flat her

father, mother, brother ancl sister Maryam and the appeliant were all present in the flat and the appellants ,rlhi.l" was parked outside the flat' Accorcling to her eviclence the next day at 3 or 4pm she callerl he*r sister (Maryam, her mother' father an{

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brother but all their phones were off' She then being worried askecl her husband whose place of work was near to her parents flat to go to the flat and check on her parents. When her husband went to the flat he found' it iocked and no one answered. She and her husband then tried to sealch out her sister as they feared that she might have been kidnapped. After breaking their fast the"y informecl the police at PS Boat Basin' The police acctmpaniecl her and her husband to her parents flat who broke open the flat door where she saw things scatterecl a[ bver the place, articles missing and the dead bodies of her mother, father, brother and sister (Maryam).The appellant was not present who she i"u."h had been kidnappecl especially when she called his mobile phone and found it to be switched off'The appellants vehicle was also no longer parked outside tn" lut. About 2 days later she suspected the appellant as he coulct not be founcl ancl did not even come to her parents funeral despite being their adopted son' This aspect of her evidence is corroborated in all material respects by her husband PW 3 Syed Waqar Hussain' This aspeci of l-rer evidence is also corroborated by PW 11 Muhammed Mubeen r'r'ho was SHO t5 Boat Basin who broke clown the door of the flat' We have no reason to disbelieve the last seen evidence of PW 3 Syed Waqar Hussai-n and PW 5 Huma Nayab and thus we believe tl-rat they saw the appellant at about 1'30am on the day of the inciclent and at the place of the incident' The bodies of the deceased were recovered less than a day iater and the appellant was the last person to see th; deceased alive. In terms of fulfilling the requirements of last seen evidence;

(a)Since the appellant was keated as the son of the murdered Khalid and Anila and was very friendly with their son Danesh and usually stayecl at there flat he had every reason to be wiih the cleceased when he was last seen with them.

(b)The place of the incident was the place where the appellant was last seen with the deceased i.e deceasecl Khalid's flat where the appellant was staying.

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(c)The timing to when the appellant. was last seen wlth the deceased and time of death of the deceased is close especially as most of this time was during the night when people ordinarily sleeP.,

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(d)The incident was reported expeditiously i'e immediately after PW 5 Huma Nayab found- that all the deceased phones were switched off and after a brief search for them'

(e)The post mortems were carried out by an expert and the murder weapon was found bloodied at the scene of the crime'

(f1 The n-rotive for the murder of the deceased was that either they had refused to allow him to marry Maryam or after raping Maryam the appellant needed to get rid of all the eye witnesses.

Thus, we fincl this to be a fit case of last seen evidence however there must be more corroboration/supportive material to connect the appellant with the offenses in order to convict him on the basis of last seen evidence which must be treated with great care and caution.

Other supportive/corroborative material' at the (a)The appellant's van was not orLly seen whilst he was of the flat but iciording to tracking records was in the vicinity flat at the time when the murders were committed'

(b)That clespite being treatecl as an adopted son of deceased knuita ancl his wife Anlla and being best friends with or deceased Danesh it does not appeal to logic commonsense phone after reason as to why the appellanidia not answer his the incident ancl clicl not even attend the funeral of his aclopted parents if he had nothing to hide' in

(c)Again two days prior to his arrest when he was spotted commonsense his vin by the police it does not appeal to,logic' or reason that he would attempt to and indeed did escape from the police who were chasing him if he was truly innocent.

the flat

(d)That some of the items which were stolen from inituaing tne artificial jewellery given . to the deceased flat trlarya.rt"by her sister *u' t"to'"'ed at the appeilan{s- which where he took the police on his own pointation and *u, ,".ognized' by pw s u'*a Nayab who had given her deceasecl iister the artificial iewellery' deceased at the

(e)That other items stolen from the flat of the time of the murcler were also recovered from the appellant from the boot of his car on his pointation'

(f)That the medical eviclence suPports the fact that all the like the iroT ,t".uur".t were murdered by a haid blunt object

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bar which was founcl bloodied at the scene which the appellant would have had access to.

(g)The appellant coulcl easily have over powered the two *u1", u.,.1 ?emales in the flat as it appears from the police sketch of where the dead bodies were lying and the evidence that the deceased were nearly all killed in their bedrooms whilst they were sleeping and as such died instantaneously or within a short interval as per post mortem reports' (h) Most crucially the DNA vaginal swabs taken from deceased Maryam produced a 100% match with the appellant which leaves no doubt couplecl with the rnedical evidence and the fact that deceased Maryam was found half naked and the DNA swabs were kept with a safe chain of custody that Maryam was raped at il-re flat where her dead body was found and thereafter murdered ancl the rapist was the appellant which also places him in the flat at the time of the rape and the murders.

Witir regard to the results of DNA testing it has recently been held by the IJon'ble'supremeCourtinitsjudgrnetttdut"dOT'0-l'2021'passedin,the case of Ali Haider @ Pappu v JameJl Httssain, etc (PLD 202"15C362) that:

,,DNA , stro nsest cortoboratioe IJ lece o f e aidence todau.

10.DNA evidence is considered as a gold standard to establish the identity of an accused' As a sequel of above discussion, it can safely be concluded that DNA Test due to its accuracy ancl conclusiveness is one of the strongest corroborative piece of evidence' ln Salman Aletam Raja case this Couri has held that DNA test help provides the- courts the identity of the perpetrator with high degree of confidence, and by .rtltg of the DNA technology the courts are in a better position to reach at a just conclusion *f."i"Uy convicting ihe real culprits and excluding the potential suspects, as well as, exonerating wrongfully involved accuied. DNA test with scientific certainty and clarity points towards the PerPetrator -u"d .lt, therefore' .o.rrid"..d one of the strongest corroborative evidence

DNA

today, especially in cases of ripe' The,usefulness of analisis, io*",rl., depends *ottty on tfe skill' ability and i,lt"g.lt)' shown by the investigaiing officers' who are the firstio arrive at the scene of the crime' Unless the eviclence i, p.op..fy clocumentecl, collectecl, packaged and preserved' it wili not meet the legal and scientific requirements for admissibilitv into a court of law"'

(i)That the police PW's had no enmity or ill will towards the by alipellant and haci no reason to falsely implicate him in this case fJ.' exumple foisting the robbeci jewellery on him and in such police PW's circumstances it has beer-r held thaithe evidence of the can be fully reliecl upon ln tl-ris respect reliance is placed on

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Mushtaq Ahmed V The State (2020 SCMR 474)'As per planting the appellanis DNA on the deceasecl's vaginal swabs we find this ui*ost impossible to be done as the police would have had no such expertise. Even other r,vise as mentioned earlier the police had no u.,*ity or ill will with any of the appellants which would cause them io irnplicate the appellants

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in a false case' The appellant did not even challenge tt',e evidence and claim that it had been tampered with.

and even if O That all the PW's are consistent in their evidence t"h"r" u." some contradictions in their evidence we consider these conlraclictions as minor in nature ancl not material and certainly not of such rnateriality so as to effect the prosecution case and the conviction of the appellant. In this respect reliance is placed on Zakir Khan V State (i995 SCMR 1793) and Khadim Hussain v' The State (PLD 2010 Supreme Court 669).

(k)A11 the PW's gave there 5'161 Cr'PC statements with rleasonable promptituJe which left no time for collusion or which concoction and there were no improvements in the evidence they gave in court as PW's under oath so as to render their evidence at trial unreliable.

Nor-re of the evidence of any PW was, dented during lengthy

0)Rather cross examination so as to render their evidence unreliabie' such evic'lence was given in a straightforward manner and was confidence inspiring.

(*) That it cloes not appeal to logic, reason or commonsense that of his the complainant woull utlo* tt't" rial rapists and murderers sister, brother, mother and father to get off scot free by substituting them with innocent people. In this resPect reliance placed is on Allah Ditta V State (PLD 2002 SC 52)' case (r,) We have also examined the clefence case' The defence ,irt ply seems to be that of false implication -has- and denial of the attega'tions against the appellant' He suggested that the flat o-ie, Younii *o. the murderer of the deceased but he did not of his defence give any evidence on oath or call any DW in suPPort of Xnd in'light of his DNA being found on the vaginai.swabs "Maryam this would lend to destroy his defence case .leceased scene during especially as hL di.l not even deny his Presence at the cross examination.

evidence and We are also aware that this is a case of circumstantial in capital cases' In that this is to be helcl to a high stanclarcl of proof to a this respect with regard to circumstantial evidence to lead conviction in a capitil case it was held as under by the Sl-P-t:*' 2026) at Court in the case otEayyaz Ahmed V State (2017 SCMR P.2030 para's 5 and 6 which are reproduced as under;

"To believe or rely on circumstantial evidence' the well settlecl and deeply entrenched principle itj thll it is imperative for the Prosecution to provtoe att of Iinks in chain an unbroken one' where one-end other thea the same touches the dead body and the

l8r neck of the accused The present case is of such a nature where many links are missing in the chain' To carry couvictiot-t on a capital charge it is essential that courts have to deeply scrutinize the circumstantial evicler-rce because fabricating of such evidence is not uncommon as we have noticed in some cases thus, very minute and narrow examination of the same is necessary to secure the ends of justice and that the Prosecution has to establish the case beyond all reasonable doubts' resting o1'r circumstantial evidence' "Reasonable Doubt" cloes not mean any doubt but it must be accompanied by such reasons/ sufficient to persuade a judiciai mind for placing reiiance on it' If it is short of such standard, itls better to discard the same so that an innocent person might not be sent to gallows' To draw an inference of guilt from such evidence' the Court has to apply its judicial mind with deep thought ancl with extra care ancl caution and whenever there are one or some indications' showing tl're design of the Prosecution of manufacturing and preparation of a case, the Courts have to show reluctance to beiieve it unless it is judicially satisfied about the guilt of accused Person and the required chain is rnacle out without missing link' otherwise at random reliance on such evidence would result in failure of justice' It may also be kept in mind that sometimes the investigating agency collects circumstantial evidence ,"n*, uppui".,tly 6"li"uuble however' if the strict standards of scrutiny are applied there would aPPear many cracks and doubts in the same which ui" inherent therein and in that case Courts "lrroyt have to discard and disbelieve the same"' (boid addecl)

In the case of Azeem I(han V Mujahid Khan (2016 SCMR 274) the following was reiterated with resPect to circumstantial evidence at P.290 as under;

"In cases of circumstantial evidence' the Courts are to take extraordinary care and caution before relying on the same' Circumstantial evidence, even if supported by defective or on inadequate evidence, cannot be rnade basis for conviction u .upitul charge' More particularly' when there are inciications of design in the preparation of a case or introducing a,-ry piJce of fabricated evidence' the Court should alulys be minclful to take extraorclinary precautions' so that the possibility of it being deiiberateiy misled into false inference and patently wrong conclusion is to be ruled out, therefor" hurd and iast |ules shouid be applied for in carefully ancl narrowly examining circumstantial evidence are such cases because .hu,,.u' of fabricating such evidence aiways there' To justify the inJerence of guilt of an accused Person/ the circumstantial evidence rnust be of a

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quality to be incompatible with the innocence of thp *.rt"d. If srrch circumstantial evidence is not of that standard and quality, it would be highly dangerous to rely upon the same by awarding capital punishment' The better and safe course would be not to rely upon it in securing the ends of justice."

1,2. Thus, based on our reappraisai of the evidence as discussed above and consi<lering that the case is based on circumstantial evidence we never the less find that the evic'lence starting from the last seen evidence to recovery of the deacl boclies at the flat, the recoveries of stolen items from both the home and van of the appellant and the appellants 100% matching DNA test on the vaginal swabs ou deceased Maryam and the other reasons rnentioned above the evidence on record provides a believable corroborated unbroken chain of events which makes an unbroken chain where one end of it touches the dead bodies of the deceased, the rape of the deceased Maryam and the items stolen from the flat of the deceased and the other the neck of the appellant and as such find that the prosecution has proved its case against appeliant through circumstantial eviclence beyontl a reasonable cloubt in resPect of the offences for which he has been charged being the murder of 4 innocent people, the rape of a young girl and the robbery of the flat and the deceased and as such we rnaintain all the convictions against the appellant in the impugned judgment which we uphold.

13.With regard to sentencing in the case of Ghulam Fatooq V State (2015 SCMR 948) where three persons had been brutally murderecl the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in the following terms atP'949;

"As regards the sentence of the appellant the circumslances of the case are such that the cruel and brutal manner in which the appellant had taken three lives has been founcl by us to be utterly offensive and his concluct has, thus, failed to evoke any sympathy' The appellant had not only killed his sister for choosiirg a matrimonial partner on her own but had also killed his brother-in-law and also an infant daughter of the appellanfs sister apart form killing a fully formed fetus inside the womb of his sister' One of tire seutences provided by the law for an offence of murder is cieath ancl in the peculiar circumstances of this case the appellant deserves no less, particularly,

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when he has killecl not one but three innocent persons and also a fu1l6y formed fetus"'

1,4. In this case the appellant has murdered 4 innocent people in a most brutal rlanner by hitting them over their heads with an iron bar, he

also completely betrayed their trust as they l-rad for years treated him as a

son and viciously raped and murdered a young girl with her whole ii'fe ahead of her at-rcl has also callously robbed the household and personal items of the deceased after murdering them and as such we find the appropriate sentence to be a deterrent one and as such up hold all the sentences handed down to the appellant and answer the confirmation reference in the affirmative whilst dismissing the appeal' 't5 The appeal ancl confirmation reference stand disposed of in the above terms

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IUDGE