After all parties delivered their final arguments, a sessions court in Islamabad reserved its judgement in the Noor Mukadam murder case on Tuesday.
Session Extensions Today’s court sessions were presided over by Judge Ata Rabbani, who later confirmed that the verdict would be announced on Thursday (Feb 24).
On July 20, last year, Noor, a 27-year-old woman, was found slain at a home in the capital’s affluent Sector F-7/4. On the complaint of the victim’s father, retired diplomat Shaukat Ali Mukadam, a first information report (FIR) was filed the same day under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) against principal accused Zahir Jaffer, who was arrested from the crime scene.
After the FIR was registered in the murder case, Zahir’s parents and household staff were arrested 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.
The court proceedings began today with Shaukat’s counsel Nisar Asghar presenting his arguments.
He accused the defence of not even sparing the court’s sanctity during the cross-examination. “It was claimed that Shaukat had got the accused arrested due to being influential,” Asghar said, contending that if there was pressure from him then the house where the incident happened would have been sealed shut instead of people going to and fro.
“It was said that planning for this case was done at the police station. If that was true then there would’ve been conformity [in the police reports] and the writing would also have been the same,” he argued.
