The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday issued its written order on the case involving Zahir Jaffer, the prime convict in the 2021 Noor Mukaddam murder case. A three-member bench of the apex court rejected Zahir Jaffer’s appeal against his death sentence, marking a significant and final development in the high-profile case. Justice Hashim Kakar authored the ruling, which stated that the convict’s appeal against the death sentence for Noor Mukadam’s brutal murder is dismissed.

However, in a partial relief, the court converted his death sentence in the rape charge into life imprisonment. The court also ruled to reduce Zahir Jaffer’s sentence in the kidnapping case from ten years to one year. Furthermore, it upheld the previous order for compensation to be paid to Noor Mukadam’s family. The decision additionally addressed the fate of co-accused gardener Jan Muhammad and security guard Iftikhar.

The court declared that the duration they have already served in prison is considered sufficient punishment. Earlier, on May 20, 2025, the Supreme Court (SC) rejected the appeal filed by Zahir Jaffer against the death penalty awarded to him in the 2021 murder case of Noor Mukadam, reported 24NewsHD TV channel. A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Hashim Kakar, read out the brief verdict and thus upheld the capital punishment awarded to Zahir, dismissing his appeal.

During the hearing, Salman Safdar, counsel for Zahir, said that the entire case of the prosecution relied on CCTV camera footage and DVR. “The court cannot look for other footage except that presented before it,” he argued. Justice Kakar said, “You have already admitted that the footage is real. And now you are objecting to one of these footages. Even the Punjab’s Forensic Science Laboratory confirmed that the video had not been tampered with.”

The judge went on to say that had any human being made the video, then an objection could have been raised that a particular scene of the video was deliberately highlighted. Noor Mukadam, 27, was found murdered at a residence in Islamabad’s upscale Sector F-7/4 on July 20, 2021. An FIR was registered later the same day against Zahir Jaffer, who was arrested at the site of the murder.

In February 2022, a district and sessions judge sentenced Zahir Jaffer to death for the murder and handed him 25 years of rigorous imprisonment, finding him guilty of rape. His household staff, Mohammad Iftikhar and Jan Mohammad — co-accused in the case — were each sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)