A sessions court in Karachi has sentenced a man to death on two counts over the 2019 murder of TV Journalist Mureed Abbas and his business partner on Thursday.
The case dates back to the night of July 9, 2019, exactly seven years ago, when prime suspect Atif Zaman and his brother Adil Zaman killed Abbas and Khizer Hayat in Karachi’s Khayaban-e-Bukhari area.
Both victims were business partners of the suspects.
Daniyal Muhammad Hussain, part of the legal team representing Abbas’s wife, said that Adil had been declared an absconder in the case after fleeing following the cancellation of his bail by the Supreme Court’s Karachi registry.
Abbas worked as an anchorperson for Bol News. Police said that he was gunned down in the incident, which was described at the time as a “personal dispute,” while Hayat sustained two bullet wounds. Hayat was moved to a private hospital where he later died of his injuries, according to police.
The case was initially handled by an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) but was transferred to a sessions court in October 2019 after the former ruled that the offence did not fall within its jurisdiction.
