20 years on, SC acquits woman, two others in triple murder case

KARACHI: The Supreme Court acquitted on Tuesday Asma Nawab and two others in a case pertaining to the murder of her parents and brother after 20 years. 

In 1998, Nawab was alleged to have orchestrated the murder of her family members over a love marriage.

Asma, Muhammad Farhan Khan and Javed Ahmed Siddiqui, had appealed against their death sentences in the apex court.

Hearing the case at Supreme Court’s Karachi Registry, the bench, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, accepted their appeals, nullified their sentences and ordered the immediate release of the suspects.

The court ruled that there was no concrete evidence against the suspects, and the evidence presented before the court had several loopholes.

Farhan’s fingerprints were taken two days after his arrest, the court ruled, adding that the prosecution failed to prove its allegations.

During the court proceedings, Justice Khosa remarked that police arrests suspects but fails to present evidence against them before courts. The suspects are released for lack of evidence but it is said courts acquit suspects, he asserted. 

There was no evidence against the co-accused Farhan as well, he observed, adding that the suspects have been serving the sentence since the last 20 years without any proof

The prosecution had informed that court that Asma and her three accomplices Farhan, Javed and Waseem had killed her three family members in 1998.

In 1999, the sessions court had ordered double death sentences for the three suspects and ordered 10 years imprisonment for Waseem.  

The Sindh High Court had rejected their appeal against the death sentence in 2015 and the appeal against that order was eventually taken up by the Supreme Court. 

Asma was the only woman facing a death sentence in Sindh province.