An Additional District and Sessions Judge in Multan has sentenced the husband of 20-year-old pregnant Sania Zahra, who was murdered last year, to death.
On July 9, 2024, Sania Zahra, a mother of two, was found hanging from a ceiling fan in her room.
Sania Zahra’s father, Syed Asad Abbas, had claimed that his daughter’s sudden death was not a suicide but a murder, while his daughter’s in-laws were trying to make the murder appear as a suicide.
An FIR was registered at the New Multan police station on the complaint of the deceased’s father, which included sections 148 (torture), 149 (unlawful assembly) and 302 (wilful murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). On November 18, Additional District and Sessions Judge Multan Mohsin Ali Khan declared that Syed Muhammad Ali Raza has been duly found guilty of the murder of the late Sania Zahra and the culprit is sentenced to death under Section 302 (B) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The court order further read that ‘Syed Muhammad Ali Raza shall be hanged till he dies’.
According to Section 302 (B) of the PPC, whoever commits wilful murder can be given the death penalty or life imprisonment as punishment.
The court directed the convict to pay Rs 500,000 as compensation to the victim’s family under Section 544-A of the Criminal Procedure Code of 1898, failing which the convict would be liable to undergo six months’ imprisonment.
In two separate court judgments, the main convict’s brother Syed Haider Raza and her mother Syeda Azra Parveen were also held responsible for Sanya Zahra’s murder.
The court sentenced both to life imprisonment and ordered them to pay Rs 55,000 each as compensation to the victim’s family.
Sania Zahra case
In early July, 20-year-old Sania Zahra was brutally murdered in Multan, Punjab.
Later, on July 14, the post-mortem report of Syeda Sania Zahra was released, which said that the mark on her neck was consistent with the mark of hanging and that she died of asphyxiation due to hanging.
The report also stated that her neck was not broken and there were no signs of injury or violence on the body. Samples of the stomach, liver and spleen have been sent to the PFSA for further analysis. The report confirmed that the woman was not pregnant at the time of her death.
When the forensic expert tried to untie the rope tied around the neck of the victim, it came untied very easily. It was further stated that the doctor present at the scene said that the victim had died at 6 pm on the same day.
On the complaint of the victim’s father, the police registered a case under sections 302, 148 and 149 of the PPC against the deceased’s husband Ali Raza, his brother Ali Haider, father Jeevan Shah, mother Azra Bibi, sister Kanwal Bibi and sister-in-law Syeda Dua.
On July 20, Multan police arrested the victim’s husband Ali Raza, the accused named in the alleged suicide case of religious leader Asad Shah’s daughter Sania Zahra.
On August 12, Punjab Information Minister Uzma Bukhari had said regarding the Sania Zahra murder case that her death did not occur by suicide, but evidence indicates that she was murdered.
While holding a press conference in Lahore along with Hina Pervez, he said that this case has been considered a test case on the instructions of the Punjab Chief Minister.
The Punjab Information Minister had said that the neck becomes longer due to the noose, there is no evidence of suicide in the Sania Zahra case due to this noose.
He had claimed that the mother-in-law and husband together put this noose around her neck to make it look like suicide. The forensic lab report prepared by former Punjab Chief Minister and current Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif proves that the dupatta that was tied around Sania Zahra’s neck is not the reason for her murder, this murder had happened before and it was later given the color of suicide.