Noor Mukadam murder consequence of ‘living relationship’ vice: Justice Najafi

ISLAMABAD: Justice Ali Baqar Najafi on Wednesday observed that the brutal murder of Noor Mukadam is a direct consequence of a troubling trend in society – what he described as the growing acceptance of “living relationships.”

Justice Najafi was sworn in earlier this month as a judge of the newly created Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), which was established following the 27th Constitutional Amendment.

He was a member of the three-judge bench of the Supreme Court that, in May, upheld the death sentence awarded to Zahir Jaffer in the Noor Mukadam murder case.

Noor, 27 years old, was found murdered at Zahir’s residence in Islamabad in July 2021. The death sentence handed down by the trial court was upheld by the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which also converted his prison sentence for rape charges into a second death penalty.

In his additional note on the Noor Mukadam case, which was uploaded to the Supreme Court’s website, Justice Najafi upheld the sentence awarded to Zahir Jaffer.

He also observed that “the present case is a direct result of a vice spreading in upper society, which we know as a ‘living relationship’.”

He stressed that such relationships ignore “societal compulsions” and “defy not only the law of the land, but also personal law under Islamic Shariah.”

The judge further stated that engaging in such a relationship was a “direct revolt against Almighty Allah” and called on the younger generation to recognise the horrible consequences, such as those seen in the present case.

He added that this issue should also be a topic for social reformers to discuss in their circles.

Last month, the apex court had taken up Zahir Jaffer’s review petition challenging the capital punishment awarded to him.

During the hearing, Justice Najafi told senior counsel Khawaja Haris Ahmed, representing the convict that it would be more appropriate for him to begin his arguments after reviewing the additional note he had not yet issued at the time.

Justice Najafi further stated that, in his view, “no mitigating circumstances” existed in the present case.

He noted that “minor discrepancies in the time of occurrence, the delay in post-mortem, the absence of fingerprints on the knife (though it matched with the DNA of the petitioner), and a minor delay in lodging the first information report” would not affect the credibility of the prosecution’s evidence, which was based on circumstantial evidence.

“In this case of circumstantial evidence, one end of the rope was found tied to the dead body of Noor Mukadam, and the other end was tied around the neck of the petitioner,” he added.

In his note, Justice Najafi also observed that the statement of Noor’s father, retired diplomat Shaukat Mukadam, about “receiving the information regarding his daughter’s murder’ was well corroborated by the evidence.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025