The Sindh High Court on Tuesday set aside death and other sentences awarded to Shahrukh Jatoi pertaining to the trial in Shahzeb Khan Murder case. SHC ordered review of charges against Jatoi, remanding the case back to the relevant anti-terrorism court for a fresh trial.
In June 2013, Karachi's anti-terrorism court-III (ATC-III) had awarded capital punishment to Shahrukh, son of business tycoon Sikandar Jatoi, and his friend Siraj, for killing the 20-year-old son of DSP Aurangzeb Khan in Karachi's DHA neighborhood on December 25, 2012. Their accomplices, Sajjad (Siraj's younger brother) and Lashari (Talpurs' servant) were given life imprisonment.
All the convicts had appealed against their conviction to SHC. A year after the appeals were still pending, the victim's parents and two sisters surprisingly announced pardon for Shahrukh and the three other convicts 'in the name of Allah' without receiving blood money. They even pleaded the high court to release them at the earliest.
The case has taken several interesting turns. Initially, a government appointed medical board had declared Shahrukh to be a minor and had sent him to juvenile jail. In its second report, the board had declared him to be somewhere between 19 to 20 years old. His family's repeated attempts to prove him juvenile and to have his trial run by a sessions' court - based on the defense lawyer's claims that the case did not fall under the ambit of the anti-terror law - were rejected by the SHC.