Mst. SULTANA BIBI alias RUBI vs THE STATE

ORDER

' KHALIL-UR-REHMAN RAMDAY, J.---This is an appeal through leave of this Court.

2. Ghulam Abbas complainant who was the father of Ramzan deceased had informed the SHO of Police Station Wan Bacharan through a written application dated 15-12-1997 that his son Ramzan deceased, who was an employee of the police department, had come back home on leave on 29- 9-1997 and that two days later i,e, on 1-10-1997 he left the house at about 11-30 a.m. Saying that he was going to Sargodha to fetch his salary and that he would come back home in the evening but never returned. The complainant did not lay any suspicion on anyone but only expressed an apprehension that his said son had been abducted for being killed. During the course of the trial, it had also been alleged that the said complainant had made an application even on 6-10-1997 to the same effect. During the course of investigation, the Investigating Officer arrested Mian Muhammad, a co-convict of the appellant who was a real brother of Ghulam Abbas complainant and thus a real CHACHA of Ramzan deceased. He also arrested the widow of the said deceased, namely, Mst. Sultana appellant as it was felt that the said duo had done the deceased to death on account of their illicit liaison with each other.

3. The prosecution evidence led at the trial to establish the guilt of the two accused persons comprised of the alleged recovery of some pieces of the dead body of the deceased at the instance of the said appellants from a room of the house of Mst. Sultana appellant and of Ramzan deceased and some letters allegedly written by the said Mian Muhammad co-accused to Mst.

Sultana appellant proving their illicit liaison.

4. As has been mentioned above, Ghulam Abbas complainant had last seen the deceased alive on 1-10-1997 when, according to the complainant, the deceased was going away to Sargodha to fetch his salary. There is no evidence that the said deceased returned home alive. It appears to be nobody's case that it was in the house of the deceased that he had been killed which indicates that the deceased had been murdered elsewhere and then pieces of his dead body were brought home and buried in one of the two rooms occupied by the deceased and Mst. Sultana appellant at their residence. No conceivable explanation was forthcoming that if the deceased had been killed elsewhere then why should the cut pieces of his dead body have been brought to the house and buried there. Another glaring factor which is available on record is that although the complainant had, at some stage, claimed that he and the deceased lived in separate, though adjacent houses but it was admitted in cross-examination that they both had a common courtyard and even a common kitchen and that no wall separated the two houses. The site plan (Exh.PD) makes the situation further clear from where it is evident that it was one and the same house which was occupied by the complainant and his deceased son though the two lived in different rooms which were adjacent to each other. There is thus no question of the deceased having been killed in that house because of the manner in which he had been murdered i,e, cutting off of his head from the rest of his body as also cutting off his limbs because it is not believable that such a brutal act would not have led to a hue and cry which would have gone unnoticed by the other 10/12 residents of the same house. It is also not believable that having killed the deceased somewhere else, the appellant could then have smuggled the pieces of his body into a room of the house where even the complainant, and as admitted by him, 10/12 other persons were also living and in any case no explanation is reasonably believable for such an act. It may be added that no memorandum was prepared with respect to the recovery of the said pieces of the dead body from the said room at the pointation of the appellants or even otherwise. This piece of evidence thus deserves no credit at all and is accordingly discarded.

5. The letters allegedly written by Mian Muhammad co-accused to Mst. Sultana Bibi appellant which had also been allegedly concealed by the latter in the floor of a room of her house which had been allegedly recovered after digging the said floor, are also not a reliable piece of evidence for more than one reasons. Firstly, there was no reason why she should have preserved those letters and that also by burying them in the floor of her house. Secondly, if the said letters had been buried in the soil then the same should have dis-integrated and could not have been found in a legible form. Thirdly, no evidence was led at the trial to prove the said letters in accordance with the provisions of Qanun-e-Shahadat Order of 1984. Consequently, we find that this piece- of evidence is also of no assistance to the prosecution.

6. During the course of the trial, it was claimed by the complainant that he knew of the illicit relations between Mst. Sultana Bibi appellant and Mian Muhammad co-accused but it is strange that he never made any mention of such a relationship through the applications that he submitted to the police for the registration of the criminal case.

7. In view of our above findings vis-a-vis the evidence led at the trial, we allow this appeal as a result whereof the impugned conviction and punishments recorded against Mst. Sultana Bibi appellant are set aside. She is acquitted of the said charge levelled against her and shall be set at liberty forthwith, if not required to be detained in any other case.