Having remained unsuccessful to get the concession of bail in case FIR No, 21 dated 28/1/2008 of Police Station Tank registered under Sections 302/452/34 PPC from the Courts of learned Judicial Magistrate and learned Sessions Judge Tank vide orders dated 29/2/2008 and 1/4/2008 respectively, Umer Khitaab, accused/petitioner, has filed the application in hand for the same relief.
2. According to the FIR lodged by Mst. Ghulam Bibi, on the eventual day at 1200 hours she was present in her house when suddenly heard report of fire shots in the house of her son Ramzan and when reached there, three persons, namely, Qaizar, Umer Khitaab and Qalu Khan duly armed with weapons were running coming out of his house. She entered the house and found her grand- daughter Mst. Shaheen Bibi lying murdered. The aforesaid three persons were, therefore, charged for committing the murder of the deceased. Motive for the offence as stated in FIR is that accused Qaizar Khan was to take away Mst. Shaheen Bibi forcibly for marriage but she had refused.
3. Learned counsel for the petitioner argued that the accusation is not supported by any ocular evidence; that there is no independent corroboration to the occurrence; that nothing incriminating has been recovered from possession of the accused/petitioner; that the accused/petitioner is complainant of FIR No, 20 of the same date and police station where sons of the complainant Ghulam Bibi are charged for committing the murder of Qaizar Khan who is accused in the present occurrence; and that the Investigating Officer has opined that both the deceased of FIRs No, 20 and 21, namely, Mst. Shaheen Bibi and Qaizar Khan, have been done to death by Muhammad Bakhsh due to their inter se illicit relations. He, therefore, termed the case of the accused/petitioner to be of further enquiry entitling him to the concession of bail. In support of the contentions, reliance was placed on the case law reported as Mazhar Mehmood Vs. The State (1997 SCM R 915), Manzoor and 4 others Vs. The State (PLD 1972 Supreme Court 134), Muhammad Anwar Vs. The State (NLR 1999 Criminal 704), Muhammad Saleem Vs. The State and another (2003 M LD 145), and Dost Muhammad Vs. The State (2005 M LD 1085).
5. The learned Deputy Advocate General argued that the petitioner has been directly charged in the FIR for taking active part in the commission of the offence and the motive was to take away forcibly Mst. Shaheen deceased to which she was not consenting. The occurrence has duly been witnessed by Mst. Farzana, daughter-in-law of the complainant, so it was prayed that the petitioner is not entitled to the concession of bail.
6. The complainant Ghulam Bibi present in person being poor is unable to engage private counsel and prayed for dismissal of this petition.
7. I have gone through the record and considered the valuable arguments of the learned counsel for the petitioner and learned Deputy Advocate General for State.
8. Though the complainant has not seen the accused with her own eyes while firing at the deceased Mst. Shaheen Bibi, but she has witnessed the accused/petitioner and his co-accused fleeing away from the house duly armed. The accusation is also supported by the statement of PW Mst. Farzana Bibi recorded under Section 161 Cr.P.C. who has stated that she was present in the Courtyard of her house at about 1200 hours when the three accused named above duly armed with weapons entered the house and she went inside the room whereafter firing was made in the Courtyard and then all of them ran away from the house and when she came out from the room, Mst. Shaheen Bibi was lying murdered. The version of the prosecution further gets support from the medical examination of the deceased according to which the death of the deceased had occurred with fire-arms.
9. Tentative assessm ent of the above facts and circumstances of the case reasonably links the accused/petitioner with an offence which falls within the prohibitory clause of Section 497 Cr.P.C. dis-entitling him to the concession of bail. The authorities cited and relied upon by the learned counsel for the petitioner are distinguishable from the facts and circumstances of the case in hand and have got no nexus with the facts of the present case.
10. Consequently, I find no merit in this bail application which is dismissed accordingly.