Islamabad High Court upholds Zahir Zakir Jaffer’s death penalty in Noor Mukadam murder case
ISLAMABAD, Mar 13 (SABAH): The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday upheld the death sentence awarded to Zahir Zakir Jaffer in the Noor Mukadam murder case by the trial court and turned his life imprisonment into capital punishment.
A two-member bench of the divisional bench, comprising Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, issued the verdict which was reserved December 21 on appeals filed against the punishment awarded to the convicts and acquittal of co-accused for the brutal murder of the 27-year-old woman.
In its judgment, the IHC rejected Zahir’s plea and sentenced him to death twice. It turned the 25-year jail term awarded to Zahir into the death penalty. The court also dismissed the pleas of Zahir’s household staff Mohammad Iftikhar and Mohammad Jan — both co-accused in the case — challenging the trial court’s verdict.
The court’s decision for the double death sentence came following Jaffer’s crime for Noor’s rape and murder. He earlier received a 25-year imprisonment sentence with hard labour and a fine of Rs0.2 million after the rape was proven.
The IHC reserved a verdict on December 21 last year in the high-profile murder case in which the prime accused, Jaffer, was sentenced to death after a long-drawn-out trial of over four months.
The trial court awarded a death sentence to Jaffer last February, while the two suspects Jan Muhammad and Muhammad Iftikhar — the gardener and security guard at Jaffer’s house — were awarded 10 years of imprisonment each.
Other suspects in the case including Jaffer’s parents, Zakir Jaffer and Ismat Adamjee, along with all employees of Therapy Works were acquitted by the court.
The convict also received a 25-year imprisonment sentence with hard labour and a fine of Rs0.2 million. Jaffer was also awarded a 10-year imprisonment sentence for the abduction and an additional one-year for keeping the victim in illegal confinement.
Before reserving its judgment in the case, the court remarked the lawyers of the parties were allowed to submit their additional arguments on the pleas within seven days.
The verdict was reserved after hearing the arguments from parties in separate pleas against the death sentence handed out to Jaffer, and the acquittal of convicts and accused — filed by Noor’s father.
Noor, 27, was found murdered at Jaffar’s residence in the capital’s upscale Sector F-7/4 on July 20 last year. A first information report (FIR) was registered the same day against Zahir Jaffer — the primary accused who was arrested from the site of the murder — under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the complaint of the victim’s father, Shaukat Mukadam, who is a retired diplomat.
On Feb 24, 2022, an Islamabad sessions court sentenced Zahir to death and awarded 10-year imprisonment to two co-accused Mohammad Iftikhar and Jan Mohammad.
Zahir’s parents — father Zakir Jaffer and mother Asmat Adamji — as well as TherapyWorks personnel, had been indicted by an Islamabad district and sessions court in October 2021 but were later acquitted by the sessions court when Jaffer was sentenced.
Following the verdict, Zahir had approached the IHC in March 2022 challenging his death sentence.
After a first information report was registered in the case and Zahir was arrested, his parents and household staff were also taken into custody by police on July 24 over allegations of “hiding evidence and being complicit in the crime”. They were made a part of the investigation based on Noor’s father’s statement.
In his complaint, Shaukat had stated that he had gone to Rawalpindi on July 19 to buy a goat for Eidul Azha, while his wife had gone out to pick up clothes from her tailor. When he had returned home in the evening, the couple found their daughter Noor absent from their house in Islamabad.
They had found her cellphone number switched off and started a search for her. Sometime later, Noor had called her parents to inform them that she was travelling to Lahore with some friends and would return in a day or two, according to the FIR.
The complainant said he had later received a call from Zahir, whose family were their acquaintances. The suspect had informed Shaukat that Noor was not with him, the FIR said.
At around 10pm on July 20, the victim’s father had received a call from Kohsar police station, informing him that Noor had been murdered.
Police had subsequently taken the complainant to Zahir’s house in Sector F-7/4 where he discovered that his “daughter has been brutally murdered with a sharp-edged weapon and beheaded”, according to the FIR.
Shaukat, who identified his daughter’s body, has sought the maximum punishment under the law against Zahir for allegedly murdering his daughter.
Police later said that Zahir had confessed to killing Noor while his DNA test and fingerprints also showed his involvement in the murder.
Six officials of Therapy Works, whose employees had visited the site of the murder before police, were also nominated in the case and were indicted with six others, including Zahir Jaffer’s parents, in October.