Man sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering trans person in Karachi
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KARACHI: A sessions court has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for killing a transgender person by stabbing with a dagger over allegations that the victim was “spreading vulgarity” in the area. Additional District and Sessions Judge (West) Gada Hussain Abro found Muhammad Nauman guilty of killing transgender person Majid Saeed Mughal in September 2022 on the allegation that the victim was spreading vulgarity in the area. Regarding the reasoning for not awarding capital punishment, the court noted that the apex court has repeatedly held that while capital punishment is the normal penalty in cases of Qatl-i-Amd, life imprisonment, being a lawful punishment, may also be considered. It added that the accused was a young man with no previous criminal record and that mitigating circumstances existed; therefore, instead of awarding the death sentence, it was more appropriate to sentence him to life imprisonment. The judge imposed a fine of Rs500,000 on the convict and directed him to pay the amount to the legal heirs of the victim as compensation. According to state prosecutor Syed Athar Hussain Shah, the complainant stated that he was at his home in Block-C, Alamgir Road, Shershah, when, on September 1, 2022, a boy came to inform him that his brother, Majid Saeed, had been murdered in a nearby street by an unidentified person who had stabbed him with a dagger over an unknown dispute. Later, the police apprehended the accused and implicated him in the case. Explaining the motive behind the murder, the prosecutor told Dawn that the accused had animosity towards the victim, who was a transgender person, and believed that the victim was allegedly spreading vulgarity in the area, which led him to kill the victim. The prosecutor further said that during the trial, a witness testified before the court that on the day of the incident, he had a chance encounter with the accused, who was carrying a dagger and whose clothes were stained with blood. The witness also identified th