PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council on Friday announced a strike against the murder of a lawyer on Monday (Feb 14) amid the claims of lawyer bodies that close family members were behind the Peshawar killing.

In a statement, the police revealed the arrest of two women in connection with the murder.

They said the deceased had a monetary dispute with his sister and brother, so they got him murdered.

The police said the detainees called the lawyer to a place and got him killed before the body was burnt in his car in the Scheme Chowk area.

They also said they were searching for the deceased’s brother and sister, who were at large.

Peshawar police arrest two suspects, insist deceased’s relatives behind killing

In a news conference jointly organised by the Peshawar High Court Bar Association and Peshawar Bar Association, PHCBA general secretary Qaiser Zaman claimed that the police’s investigations revealed that the close family members and two women were behind the murder of lawyer Taif Khan.

He said confirmed that Taif Khan was brutally murdered.

Mr Zaman said the human remains recovered from a brunt car were the slain lawyer’s and that the deceased’s brother and sister were the main suspects in the case and both were at large.

The PHCBA leader said that the lawyer community handled the murder case very well and prevented social media speculations about it.

He thanked the city police and prosecution department for their help in getting to the bottom of the murder.

He said that the lawyer’s funeral prayers in absentia would be offered on the premises of the Peshawar High Court on Monday.

On the other hand, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council, in a statement issued here, said that an emergency meeting held on Friday decided about one-day boycott of the court proceedings against the lawyer’s murder.

According to the statement, the lawyers of the principal seat of the Peshawar High Court, tehsil and district courts of Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Mohmand, Mardan, Swabi, Khyber, Kohat, Hangu and Orakzai will protest the murder.

The council said that lawyers in other districts would not observe the strike.

It also demanded of the federal government to immediately get the Lawyers Protection Bill passed by parliament.

The council condemned the murder of Taif Khan and said the lawyer was subjected to the ‘worst kind’ of torture before his body was burnt.

It added that the charred remains of the body were recovered three days after the murder.

The council, however, said that it was satisfied with the police investigation into the murder.

Last Saturday, human remains were recovered from a burnt car parked at the Scheme Chowk in the limits of the Inqilab police station here.

The police later identified the car as that of lawyer Taif Khan, a resident of Scheme Chowk on the Kohat Road, through its vehicle chassis number recovered from the excise and taxation department.

When the police contacted the deceased’s family, his brother, Sadaf Khan, claimed that his brother had gone to the Peshawar High Court on Friday morning and did not return home.

He also said the deceased had sent the last text message to his wife on her mobile phone on Friday claiming he was safe.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2022