PAKISTAN: TWO CLERICS SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR KIDNAPPING AND MURDERING STUDENT

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Pakistan on 14 June 2021 sentenced two clerics to death after finding them guilty of kidnapping a 15-year-old student for ransom and later murdering him.
According to the prosecution, Qari Abdul Majeed and Qari Ahsan Ali had kidnapped Abdul Moiz on 26 June 2016, just after his parents allowed him to sit in Aitkaaf at the Ghousia Qadriya Masjid in Khudadad Colony.
The boy was kept hostage for four days in a house in Usmania Colony and after the payment of Rs400,000 in ransom by his family, he was killed by the accused who dismembered his body into parts, the prosecution added.
The judge ordered that the convicts be hanged by neck till their death. The judge also ordered the convicts to pay a fine of Rs1 million to the family of the victim or else they would spend five years more in prison.
The court heard 16 witnesses against the accused. In the light of the evidence, the judge observed that the prosecution had successfully established its case against the accused beyond any shadow of doubt.
The judge awarded the accused two counts of capital punishment under the Anti-Terrorism Act and remarked that their offence reeked of inhumanity and they did not deserve any leniency.