Man who killed a Pakistani Christian woman Sonia Allah Rakha has been awarded lifetime imprisonment sentence by a court. On November 2020, the victim 24-years-old at that time was gunned down by Muhammad Shehzad on Islamabad Highway while she was on her way to work.
In a landmark verdict, the Islamabad Sessions court judge Azam Khan handed down a 25-years imprisonment to Muhammad Shehzad.
During the case hearing, Judge Azam Khan, lauded the police for conducting thorough investigations into the case leaving no speck of doubt. Muhamamd Shehzad named as primary perpetrator while his suspected three accomplices were acquitted from the case. Family members of Sonia hail the court ruling saying that the decision has brought relief to the family members. Sonia’s father Allah Rakha stated that his daughter was not killed for doing anything wrong; instead she was killed for refusing marriage proposal of a Muslim man. He said that she was being coerced by the culprit to renounce her faith and marry him. Sonia had declined to renounce her faith and marry Shehzad.
It had ben revealed by the family members that Sonia had informed her mother about Shehzad’s marriage proposal and that she had declined. In an attempt to persuade Sonia to marry him, Shehzad had also sent his mother to Sonia’s house with a formal marriage proposal. Sonia’s mother respectfully turned down the proposal clarifying that the difference in religious backgrounds of both families will be unacceptable for communities and relatives of both families. The refusal, purportedly angered Shehzad leading him to gun down Sonia.
“She had been killed not for any wrongdoing but simply for refusing to marry a Muslim man,” Allah Rakha told a Pakistani news outlet. Over the past three years the family had to face a row of challenges viz emotional and financial.
