ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s highest court on Saturday rejected an appeal by a man convicted of murdering his former wife just two days after she secured a judicial divorce, declaring that women who exercise their legal rights must not face violence with impunity.
In a strongly worded judgment, a three-judge bench led by Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar ruled that the killing struck at the heart of constitutional protections for life, dignity, and equality. The court found no grounds to overturn the concurrent convictions or the death sentence handed down to Wasim Abbas.
The case centered on the October 11, 2020, shooting of Shehnaz Bibi in Lahore. According to the prosecution, Abbas, armed with a pistol and accompanied by two unidentified men, forced his way into the home of Irshad Begum around 3 p.m. He entered a room where Shehnaz Bibi and another woman were resting, taunted her over her successful demand for divorce, and fired multiple shots. She suffered six gunshot wounds to her abdomen, hand, thighs, and back; an accomplice fired an additional shot below her right knee. Shehnaz Bibi died at the scene.
An ex parte divorce decree in her favor had been issued only 48 hours earlier, on October 9, 2020. The Supreme Court noted that the motive was deep resentment over her lawful exercise of rights under Pakistan’s Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act of 1939 and the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance of 1961.
Justice Kakar, writing for the bench that also included Justices Salahuddin Panhwar and Ishtiaq Ibrahim, stressed the court’s constitutional duty under Articles 9, 14, and 25 to safeguard the life, dignity, and equal treatment of all citizens, including women.
Citing a 2019 precedent, the judgment affirmed that a woman seeking legal dissolution of marriage through the courts is exercising a fundamental right. Violence against her for doing so, the court said, must be met with the full force of the law.
The trial court had convicted Abbas of murder under Section 302(b) of the Pakistan Penal Code and sentenced him to deatH, along with compensation of 500,000 rupees to the legal heirs. He also received a concurrent 10-year rigorous imprisonment term and fine for house trespass. The Lahore High Court upheld the verdict in June 2025.The Supreme Court described the eyewitness testimony of Irshad Begum and Naeem Bibi, both residents of the house, as reliable and confidence-inspiring.
Rejecting any call for leniency, the bench characterized the crime as exceptionally brutal, calculated, premeditated, and cold-blooded, carried out inside the victim’s family home in ruthless defiance of the law.
While Pakistan’s law guarantees women the right to seek judicial dissolution of marriage, women who pursue divorce frequently encounter deep social stigma, family pressure, and practical barriers that make this legal right difficult to exercise in practice.
The writer is an Assistant Editor at Dissent Today, focusing on extremism and political violence.
