1. SAJJAD AHMAD, J.-Petitioner Sarfaraz has been found guilty of the murder of Taj Muhammad, deceased, and sentenced to death by the Additional Sessions Judge, Peshawar. His conviction and sentence have been confirmed by the High Court of West Pakistan, Peshawar Bench. The murder took place at noon time on the 9th of August 1967, According to the prosecution case, the deceased was at the time lying on a cot in the shop of P. W.
2. Ali Muhammad, black--smith, where the other P. Ws., namely, Saaduddin, Nur Akbar and Muhammad Yousuf, were also present listening to a Transistor Radio. The petitioner came there armed with a tamancha and fired a shot at the deceased, injuring him fatally on the head and then fled away. The occurrence was reported at the Police Station Tangi by P. W. Muhammad, father of the deceased, at 2 p.m. Wherein he charged the petitioner for the murder, but stated that there was no enmity between him and the deceased prior to the occurrence. However, at the trial, Muhammad, aforesaid, and P. W. Mahmood, disclosed that a month before the occurrence there was a dispute between the petitioner and the deceased who-owned lands adjacent to each other, on the turn of the irrigation water. The High Court has disbelieved this allega--tion of motive as it was put in at a belated stage and, was contrary to the F. I. R., where it was clearly said that no enmity existed between the parties. Nonetheless, the learned Judges of the High Court have confirmed the death sentence awarded to the petitioner as absence of motive is not a mitigating circumstance.
3. The learned counsel for the petitioner has not questioned the petitioner's conviction, but has pleaded for the lesser sentence, laying stress on the absence of motive as found by the High Court.
4. It cannot be said that motive` was non-existing in this case, the finding of title High Court being that because of its late presentment in the prosecution case, it was not satisfactorily proved: However, a murder which may apparently appear to be motiveless may not be without a motive as it is not easy to discover the same which may be lying hidden in the mind of the murderer. But, even if murder is committed without a motive, it does not get invested with any virtue to merit a leniency in the sentence. The present case is one of wanton and heartless murder for which the petitioner has been rightly sentenced to death. The petition is dismissed.