ISLAMABAD, Mar 11 (NNI): The Islamabad High Court (IHC) will announce the verdict it had reserved on the appeal against the death penalty of Noor Muqaddam’s murderer on Monday.
A two-member bench comprising IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq, and Justice Sardar Ijaz Ishaq Khan will pronounce the verdict they had reserved on Dec 21 last.
Earlier, a Sessions Court had sentenced convict Zahir Jaffer to death in the case. While announcing the verdict that was pronounced on Feb 24, Additional Sessions Judge Ata Rabbani also found Zahir guilty of rape under Section 376 and handed him 25 years of imprisonment along with Rs200,000 fine. He had also been sentenced to 10 years in jail and a fine of Rs100,000 for kidnapping Noor to murder her. On the other hand, the court also ordered the convict to pay Rs0.5 million to Noor’s family. The sessions court had also sentenced co-accused Jameel and Jan Muhammad to ten years each in jail.
On July 2021, 27-year-old Noor was found murdered at Zahir’s residence located in Islamabad’s Sector F-7/4. A first information report (FIR) under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) was lodged against Zahir Jaffer on the complaint of the girl’s father.
Following the FIR, Zahir was arrested however, on July 24, 2021, his parents and household staff were also taken into custody over allegations of hiding the evidence. Later, Zahir Jaffer confessed to killing Noor Muqaddam and a DNA report confirmed she was raped. The accused told that she was betraying him, adding, “I stopped her after knowing about her betrayal but she denied which made me angry.”
As per the video obtained by the police regarding the torture of the victim, it was seen that Noor ran from the balcony of the house towards the security guard’s cabin and locked herself in at 4:30 pm. Zahir Jaffer followed Noor and took her out of the cabin. The guards in the street kept watching and did nothing to stop him from assaulting the girl. NNI
