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KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Karachi awarded life imprisonment to four accused in the murder case of social activist Parveen Rehman, the director of Orangi Pilot Project who was gunned down in metropolis in 2013.
Five people had been charged in the high-profile murder case, namely Abdul Raheem Swati and his son Mohammad Imran Swati, and three co-accused – Ayaz Shamzai alias Swati, Amjad Hussain Khan and Ahmed Khan alias Pappu Kashmiri.
The ATC sentenced Ayaz Swati, Raheem Swati, Amjad Hussain Khan, and Ahmed Khan alias Pappu Kashmiri to double life imprisonment after they were found guilty of her murder. All five of the accused were fined Rs200,000.
The fifth accused, Imran Swati, was awarded a sentence of seven years for being an accomplice in the murder of Rehman.
The court had reserved its verdict on October 15 after the court had recorded the evidence and final arguments in the eight-year-long trial. However, the pronouncement of the verdict was postponed after the prosecutor had moved an application on Oct 28 for framing an amended charge against the accused for hatching a conspiracy to kill Rahman.
The murder
Parveen, who was a renowned urban planner and social activist, was murdered in a drive-by shooting on her car at the Banaras flyover a few minutes after she left her office for home on March 13, 2013.
The case was initially registered at the Pirabad police station under Sections 302 of premeditated murder and 34 common intention of the Pakistan Penal Code.
Later, Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, was added to the first information report on the basis of a judicial inquiry conducted by then-district and sessions judge (west) Ghulam Mustafa Memon on the orders of the Supreme Court.
In March, the ATC was told that Rahman had identified and named “land grabbers and extortionists” for trying to illegally occupy the land of the OPP’s office in an interview recorded around 15 months before she was allegedly killed by the same group.
