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ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday acquitted Shahrukh Jatoi and others, involved in cold-blooded murder of Karachi’s youth Shahzeb.
The university student Shahzeb Khan was shot dead on a street in Karachi on 25 December 2012 over a minor argument. Prime suspect in the murder, Shahrukh was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court but later the high court had commuted it into life term.
In March this year, a three-judges bench of SC comprising Justice Muzahir Naqvi, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Muneeb Akhtar took up the pleas of the accused in the murder case.
At the outset of the hearing, Justice Naqvi asked that the case against Shahrukh Jatoi was of section 302 of the PPC, how come terror charges remained in the case when the aggrieved party reached a settlement?
Jatoi’s lawyer Latif Khosa said his client was languishing in jail for the last eight years, despite an agreement with the Shahzeb family, which was currently settled in Australia.
It is pertinent to mention here that in 2017, the complainant side had ‘pardoned’ him under the Qisas and Diyat law. However, in 2018, the Supreme Court of Pakistan took notice of it. Subsequently, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Sindh High Court (SHC).
Case Background: Shahzeb Khan, the only son of his parents, was shot dead because of a trivial matter. He and his sister had just returned to their home in the Country Club Apartments from the wedding when a servant living in the building teased his sister. Shahzeb raised his voice against the harassment after which a fight broke out. However, Shahzeb’s father, DSP Aurangzeb, jumped in and quickly resolved the dispute.
Soon after this, Shahzeb was reported to having a cup of tea with his friends when accused Talpur and his friend Shahrukh Jatoi followed him, along with Jatoi’s armed guards. Police say that in an act of cold-bloodedness, they then allegedly fired four bullets into Shahzeb’s car, leaving him severely injured, and eventually dead.
