ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed the appeal of a convict Muhammad Munawar, who was sentenced for the 2013 murder of his real sister in Faisalabad, and has upheld his life imprisonment.
A two-member bench of the apex court comprising Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim issued judgment in a petition filed by the convict Muhammad Munawar against the judgment passed by Lahore High Court on March 8, 2022.
The court dismissed the appeal and upheld the sentences awarded by the learned High Court. When a brother takes the life of his own sister, the very person he is expected to protect, cherish, and love, it transcends mere criminality and becomes a grave moral rupture,” says a five-page judgment, authored by Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim.
The court held that the case at hand is that of sororicide, the killing of one’s own sister adding that it is profoundly unfortunate that siblings who share a bond of companionship, trust, and mutual care from childhood should act in betrayal of this bond.
“Traditionally, a brother’s care for his sister has been seen as a sacred responsibility, and to forsake this duty strikes at the heart of family bonds and the moral fabric of society,” says the judgment.
The court held that sororicide is an unnatural breach of trust that reverberates through the conscience of the community but alarmingly, such tragedies are becoming increasingly visible in our society, shattering families and leaving society itself to grapple with the loss of its most fundamental bonds.
If the court were to exclude the evidence pertaining to motive and recovery, the benefit of which has already been afforded to the petitioner, the prosecution has nonetheless succeeded in establishing its case against the petitioner for the murder of Mst Shabana Bibi through confidence-inspiring ocular account furnished by the aforementioned witnesses, which finds strong corroboration in the medical evidence on record,” the court held.
