Eatery's owner, employees acquitted as father pardons accused for sons’ death

KARACHI: A sessions court acquitted three suspects in a case pertaining to death of two minor boys owing to food poisoning at a Karachi’s restaurant since both parties reached a compromise on the case.

Additional district and sessions judge (South) Sara Junejo announced the case verdict reserved on an application jointly filed by both the parties to compromise on the matter.

The judge accepted the compromise plea and acquitted three accused in the case.

The compromise application was filed under Section 345(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which says that the offences punishable under Sections of the Pakistan Penal Code specified in the table (which includes Qatl-i-Amd registered under Section 302), with the permission of the court before which any prosecution for such offence is pending, be compounded by the heirs of the victims.

“The compromise [was] arrived [at] due to own free will with other parties, as mentioned above in the true spirit of Islam and in the name of Allah,” the application stated.

The investigating officer had nominated Nadeem Mumtaz, the owner of Arizona Grill, and its employees Adnan Aleem, Mohammad Aamir Shaikh, Mohammad Ashraf and Abid Hussain, as accused in the investigation report for their “negligence and food adulteration”.

The complainant, Mohammad Ahsan, the father of the deceased children also submitted an affidavit which stated: “I out of my free will (and) without any threat, pressure, compromise without compensation with Arizona Grill restaurant owner, Nadeem Mumtaz, his employees, who are confined in the CJK, and others, who are implicated in the challan submitted by police,” … pardon them “in the name of Almighty Allah”.

In November last year, two kids, 18-month-old Ahmed and 5-year old Muhammad breathed their last shortly after dining at the restaurant with their mother. The incident triggered a police investigation into a suspected case of death from food poisoning against a local restaurant in Karachi’s Defence Housing Authority.