The Sindh High Court (SHC) has dismissed the appeal of a man against the death sentence awarded to him in the case of his wife’s murder
Rajesh had been sentenced to death by a central district & sessions court for setting his wife on fire in the Gulbahar neighborhood on October 7, 2020.
According to the prosecution, the appellant had had a quarrel with his wife Radha, following which he set her on fire, resulting in her death during treatment at the hospital.
The appellant’s counsel said that there was no last-scene witness of the incident, so the prosecution’s case was based only on circumstantial evidence.
He said that the complainant had lodged a case after a delay of five days, despite the cause of the fire that led to the death of the woman being unknown as to whether it was deliberate or accidental.
He added that the dying declaration of the deceased could not be relied upon because it was belated, while the medical evidence did not support the ocular evidence.
The additional prosecutor general, however, supported the trial court’s judgment, saying that the prosecution had proved its case against the appellant without any reasonable doubt.
After hearing the arguments of the counsel and the perusal of the evidence, an SHC division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha said that the prosecution had proved an unbroken chain of evidence, one end of which touched the dead body and the other the neck of the appellant.
The court said that a young mother had been murdered in cold blood in the cruellest manner by her being burnt to death over a quarrel, adding that a young child had lost her mother.
The court noted in its judgment that the effects of the incident on the family are devastating. The court said that crimes against women, particularly domestic violence, seemed to be on the rise these days.
The court also said that some so-called aggrieved men seemed to have little compulsion in throwing acid on women for the most trivial of perceived reasons, thus ruining their entire lives and denting their future.
The court observed that rather than showing respect for women, men often treat them with the utmost cruelty and brutality as if we live in medieval times and where women were regarded as chattels (personal possessions).
The court also observed that courts must send a loud and clear message to those men who behave in such an unspeakable manner towards women and children that such shameful and disgraceful conduct would not be tolerated in a society governed by the rule of law, and Islamic values and concepts, so in such like cases the only appropriate sentence is a deterrent one.
The court said that keeping in view the particular facts and circumstances of the barbaric case where a husband burnt his wife alive over a quarrel, the death sentence of the appellant would be maintained, thus dismissing his appeal.
Source: The News
