RAWALPINDI – An anti-terrorism court (ATC) here on Wednesday awarded death sentence to three counts to four men for kidnapping a teenager from Pirwadhai last year and later killing him after taking transom from his parents.
Muhammad Aslam, Muhammad Javed, Fazal Hussain and Ghulam Hussain were convicted by Special Judge ATC-II Rana Masood Akhtar for abducting and killing 17-year-old Rehman Ghani after taking ransom money from his father.
The judge handed down death penalty to each convict on three counts for kidnap for ransom, murder and spreading terrorism. Each convict has to pay Rs 100,000 to the legal heirs of the deceased boy while the immovable property of the convicts would also be confiscated, the judge remarked.
The court further gave seven years imprisonment to each convict with Rs 50,000 as fine for concealing the dead body and two years jail term with Rs 10,000 as fine for planning the kidnapping. In the case, another accused Abdul Malik is still at large and ATC No 2 declared him as proclaimed offender.
According to Muhammad Gull, the father of the deceased boy, he paid Rs 400,000 as ransom to the convicts as they demanded Rs 2 million for the safe release of his son. He said that the kidnappers called him from Pindi Bhattian to pay the ransom amount. “I handed over the money to man on roadside and identified the receiver as Ghulam Hussain who in the locality of Zia-ul-Haq Colony dealt in used items. But the accused was unaware that I knew him,” he said.
“As I was handing over the money other accused were sitting in a motorcycle Rikshaw parked at a distance. I saw them and recognized them as residents of Pirwadhai but kept mum,” the complainant said.
Earlier on Police Station (PS) Pirwadhai officials filed a kidnapping case on March 20, 2011 against unknown men, he said adding that he informed police about the involvement of the accused.
He said that police arrested the kidnappers on April 16 while sitting in a hotel at Pirwadhai.
The kidnappers confessed their crime of kidnapping, taking Rs 400,000 as ransom and killing the boy.
They said they killed Ghani and dumped his dead body in the floor of a store as they feared if freed the boy would disclose their identity.
Later, police recovered the dead body of Rehman Ghani.