Noor Mukadam murder: SC hears appeal of convict against death sentence

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court hearing an appeal of Zahir Jaffer against his death sentence observed that the girl was brutally murdered.

A three-member bench, headed by Justice Hashim Kakar and comprising Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Ali Baqar Najafi on Monday was hearing Zahir Jaffer’s appeal against the death sentence awarded by District Sessions Judge, Islamabad, which was upheld by the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

Jaffer was convicted for murder of 27-year-old Noor Mukadam, found murdered at Zahir’s Islamabad residence in July 2021. According to the investigation, Noor was tortured before being beheaded.

At the outset, Barrister Salman Safdar, representing Zahir, filed submitted medical history of his client from 2013 until now before the bench. He informed the bench about the sentences awarded to Zahir — death sentence on murder, jail term turned into death penalty on rape and concurrent 10 years in prison for kidnapping.

However, Justice Hashim Kakar stated that a “girl was brutally murdered”. He further said: “Judges must be willing to bear some pain. It shouldn’t be that we admit an appeal for a preliminary hearing and then don’t hear it. People remain on death row for 10 years — this will not happen anymore.”

Justice Najafi observed: “Our system is such that parties know everything”, adding that parties are aware of the full facts. Justice Ibrahim said that deciding on a case is the “trial of the judges who conduct the proceedings”.

Safdar contended that only the charge of murder was mentioned in the first information report (FIR) initially, while other offences were included 22 days later. He claimed there was “no evidence” provided that the site of the crime was the suspect’s residence. Police had previously said that samples collected from a knife, used as a murder weapon, and blood stains matched with the victim.

The lawyer detailed that the incident took place at 10pm and the case was registered at 11:30pm that night, before 12:10am, which he said was the stated time of death in Noor’s post-mortem report conducted the next morning.

Safdar further said that Amjad, a Therapy Works employee injured during the incident, was “made a suspect instead of a witness”. He added that the police were “depending” on Zahir’s photogrammetry tests and CCTV footage, referring to a video that revealed that Noor had jumped from the first floor of the house and ran towards the main gate to save her life, but found it locked.

Justice Kakar said “individuals remain locked up in a death cell for as many as 10 years. This will not happen now.”

The court then gave a break in the proceedings, saying they will resume after the hearing of reserved seats case. At 1:30 pm when the hearing resumed, Safdar contended, “My client’s mental state was not okay when the incident happened. The trial court did not have his mental state properly examined.”

Justice Kakar responded, “You should have filed an application at that time about whatever objections you had.” Upon Safdar claiming that Zahir was not “medically fit at any stage of his trial”, the bench asked him whether any medical board had been formed to assess the suspect’s mental state.

To this, the lawyer replied, “This is the concern. No medical board was formed at any stage.”

The sessions’ court had dismissed the application to form a medical board in January 2022, noting that the concern was not raised in earlier hearings but only when the trial was “going to end very soon”. It had pointed out that the plea was moved without providing Zahir’s medical history and “just to get rid of criminal liability.”

During the hearing, Safdar noted that the evidence referred to the CCTV footage and a digital video recorder, and recalled that Zahir had pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

The case was adjourned until today (Tuesday).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025