A Sessions Court in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday (10th December) sentenced a Pakistani national identified as 27-year-old Hanzulla Yaseen from Bahawalpur. He was given 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for attempting to kill a security officer back in 2016.
Yaseen has been in jail since 20th June 2016, and the court has said that this period will be counted as part of his sentence. This means he is likely to be released around the middle of next year.
Apart from the attempt to murder case, the court sentenced him to 10 years under the Arms Act and five years under the Foreigners Act. However, considering that all the offences were part of a single incident, the court ruled that all the sentences would run concurrently. Yaseen has also been slapped with a fine of ₹20,000. He will be awarded an additional month of simple imprisonment in case he fails to pay the amount.
The court said in its judgment that even though charges against him were serious and related to state security, many factors helped the court decide on the sentence. These included the manner in which the offence was committed, the fact that Yaseen had made a voluntary, unequivocal confession of his crime, and most importantly, no injury was caused to any member of the patrolling team during the commission of the crime.
The court added that while the case is serious, it did not fall into the category of the “most extreme” cases of attempted murder, for which the sentence usually attracts life imprisonment.
The court also took into consideration the “mitigating circumstances” in the case file, which supported giving a lesser quantum of sentence than imprisonment for life. Once Yaseen completes his imprisonment, the authorities will take action as per the Foreigners Act, 1946. He is to be handed over to the concerned authorities for repatriation to Pakistan, as stated in the order.
