IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN 
(APPELLATE JURISDICTION)  
 
 
 
PRESENT: 
MR. JUSTICE EJAZ AFZAL KHAN 
MR. JUSTICE MAQBOOL BAQAR 
MR. JUSTICE FAISAL ARAB  
 
 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 466 OF 2017 
(On appeal against the judgment dated 19.03.2014 
passed by the Lahore High Court, Lahore in Murder 
Reference No. 305/2010 & Criminal Appeal No. 253-
J/2010) 
 
Muhammad Saleem 
… Appellant 
VERSUS 
The State 
… Respondent 
 
For the Appellant:  
Ms. Aisha Tasneem, ASC 
 
For the State: 
 
Ch. Muhammad Waheed, Addl. P.G. 
 
For the Complainant: 
Mr. Muhammad Siddiq Khan Baloch, ASC 
 
Date of Hearing:  
28.02.2018 
 
 
JUDGMENT 
 
 
 
 
FAISAL ARAB, J.- The appellant was tried under 
Sections 302, 324, 380 & 411 PPC and sentenced to death for 
committing murder of Muhammad Yaseen vide judgment dated 
18.05.2010. He was also directed to pay compensation of 
Rs.100,000/- to the heirs of the deceased in terms of Section 544-A 
Cr.P.C. and in default to undergo six months simple imprisonment. 
He was further convicted under Section 324 PPC for causing injury 
to the mother of the deceased Mst. Zaitoon Bibi and sentenced to 
five years rigorous imprisonment and fined to the tune of 
Rs.15,000/- and in default thereof to suffer a further one month’s 
simple imprisonment. The learned High Court, however, converted 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 466 OF 2017 
2
the death sentence into life imprisonment, maintaining the fines 
and other punishment.   
 
2. 
 
The incident is of 20.11.2007. In the FIR, it was 
reported that on hearing cries of his mother at about 2.00 a.m. in 
the middle of the night, the complainant Muhammad Yameen 
alongwith Muhammad Shahid, Muhammad Aslam, Malik Sajjad 
rushed towards the house of his brother Muhammad Yaseen and 
saw the appellant inflicting dagger blows to his brother and when 
mother Mst. Zaitoon Bibi intervened, a dagger blow was inflicted on 
her stomach as well. Leaving the injured on the floor, the appellant 
left with the knife in his hand daring the witnesses not to come near 
him. Both Muhammad Yaseen and Mst. Zaitoon Bibi were then 
taken to hospital in injured condition where Muhammad Yaseen 
succumbed to his injuries. The motive, as narrated in the FIR, was 
that just a day earlier the deceased Muhammad Yaseen had 
received Rs.100,000/- from his nephew Muhammad Shahid and the 
appellant being his friend was well aware of this and soon after the 
incident, the said amount was found missing, which raised 
suspicion that the appellant committed murder of the deceased for 
money.  
 
3. 
 
Learned counsel for the appellant contended that the 
postmortem was conducted with a delay of six hours; that the 
prosecution witnesses were related to the deceased; that it was an 
incident of dacoity in which deceased was killed by dacoits and that 
the motive attributed to the appellant is not believable. Learned 
Additional Prosecutor General and the learned counsel for the 
complainant, on the other hand, defended the impugned judgment.  
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 466 OF 2017 
3
 
4. 
 
Whether it was a case of robbery or there was suspicion 
on the appellant for having illicit relations with the wife of the 
deceased, as was suggested by the appellant himself in his 
statement recorded under Section 342 Cr.P.C, the motive will 
remain shrouded in mystery. The only thing that is to be seen is 
that whether the ocular and medical evidence as well as the 
recovery made by the police was so deficient that is to be lightly 
brushed aside.  
 
5. 
 
It is an admitted fact that the appellant remained an 
absconder for about nine days. He was a friend of the deceased 
having his residence in the same neighborhood and known to the 
entire family of the deceased. It is quite surprising that he could not 
be found at his residence on the night of the incident, considering 
that the police was informed of the incident at 3:20 a.m. At that 
time the appellant ought to be found sleeping in his bed but he 
absconded. For any reason, if he had not spent the night in his 
house when the murder took place then he must be somewhere 
else. Not a single question was put to any of the prosecution 
witnesses that on the fateful night, he spent the night elsewhere. 
When a person is implicated in a case for committing murder at a 
place where he was not present, the most important question that is 
put to the prosecution witnesses in cross-examination is that the 
accused at the time of the incident was not even present in the 
locality. Nothing of the sort has come on the record. All this atleast 
establishes that after the incident, which took place in the middle of 
the night at 2 a.m. the appellant could not be found at his 
residence.    
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 466 OF 2017 
4
 
6. 
 
PW-7 Muhammad Yameen, the complainant of the FIR 
and PW-8 Muhammad Shahid were residents of the same locality 
whereas PW-6 Mst. Zaitoon Bibi the mother of the deceased was 
residing in the house with the deceased where the murder took 
place. Hence none of the witnesses can be said to be chance 
witnesses. Their ocular account of the incident is also consistent. A 
question may arise that if the prosecution witnesses have told the 
truth then why they did not intervene considering the fact that the 
deceased received as many as fourteen stab wounds. As mentioned 
above, the complainant lived in the adjacent house and PW-8 
Muhammad Shahid lived in the house opposite to that of the 
deceased. They woke up only when they heard the cries of Mst. 
Zaitoon Bibi. The cries of the mother reflect that scuffle between the 
appellant and the deceased had already started and in the process 
the appellant started stabbing the deceased. It would have taken the 
witnesses atleast a minute or so to get up from their beds and rush 
to the place of the incident. By that time quite a few knife blows 
might have already been inflicted on the deceased. There was no 
reason for the prosecution witnesses, more specially for Mst. 
Zaitoon Bibi (PW-6) who was mother of the deceased living with him 
in the same house and had herself received a knife blow right in her 
stomach to falsely implicate the appellant and conceal the fact that 
someone else had committed the murder of her son. Then according 
to the police witness soon after the arrest of the appellant on the 
tenth day of the incident, the knife and half of the missing money 
were recovered by the police at his instance. As to the medical 
evidence, the male doctor who conducted postmortem of the 
deceased and the female doctor who examined the injured Mst. 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 466 OF 2017 
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Zaitoon have both in their respective reports have given the 
approximate time of injuries, which coincides with the time reported 
by the prosecution witnesses. The testimony of eye-witnesses 
including complainant, the mother of the deceased who was injured, 
the police witness, who effected recovery of the crime weapon, the 
report of the serologist and the medical evidence cannot be brushed 
aside, which remained unshaken and do not point to any material 
contradiction. The only inconsistency that was tried to be 
highlighted by the defence counsel was that initially it was reported 
that the appellant had a knife in his hand which in evidence turned 
out to be a knife type of dagger. This inconsistency on its own 
strength cannot be regarded sufficient enough to discard the 
unshaken ocular account of the incident. There were fourteen 
incised wounds on the body of the deceased inflicted by a sharp 
edged weapon, which could either be caused by a heavy knife or a 
dagger. Whether it was a knife or a knife type of dagger, the same is 
a minor discrepancy without having any effect on the type of 
injuries sustained by the deceased. It all depends how a weapon is 
described by a witness.  
 
7. 
 
As far as the argument that the postmortem was 
conducted with a delay of about six hours as the injured were taken 
to the hospital at 3.00 a.m. whereas the postmortem was conducted 
on the same day at 9.10 a.m., suffice it to say that the lethargy that 
is witnessed in most of the government hospitals and the fact that it 
is nobody’s case that the deceased, a man in his forties, died of 
natural death, the delay in conducting the postmortem was not of 
such a consequence so as to brush aside the entire ocular evidence 
against the appellant.  
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 466 OF 2017 
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8. 
 
The evidence that has come on the record was sufficient 
to lead both the courts below to reach the conclusion that it was the 
appellant who had committed murder.  
 
9. 
 
In view of what has been discussed above, charge 
against the appellant has been proved beyond any shadow of 
reasonable doubt. This appeal having no merit is thus dismissed.     
 
 
JUDGE 
 
JUDGE 
 
 
 
JUDGE 
 
 
Islamabad,  
Announced on ____________ by Hon’ble Mr. Justice Faisal Arab 
  
Approved For Reporting 
Khurram 
