MARDAN / SWABI: As administration of the Abdul Wali Khan University on Tuesday suspended seven of its employees for their alleged involvement in lynching of a student on its campus, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan declared that perpetrators of the heinous crime would be given exemplary punishment.

During his visit to Zaida village to offer condolences to the family of the slain student, Mashal Khan, he said that none of the people res­ponsible for the brutal killing would be spared, even if they were found to be affiliated to his own political party.

Speaking to the media at the residence of Mashal’s father, Muhammad Iqbal, the PTI chief said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government would go to any extent to provide justice to the aggrieved family.

Imran says none of the people responsible will be spared

Investigations carried out so far had shown that Mashal had not committed blasphemy, Imran said, adding that a well-planned conspiracy seemed to have been hatched to get rid of the student.

Imran said the statement of the police chief of the province, Salahuddin Mehsud, had shown clearly that nothing had been found to implicate Mashal, or his friends Abdullah and Zubair, in any blasphemous act.

He said the entire nation, including the ulema and political leaders, felt that the way Mashal was killed could not be tolerated.

“As a father, I can understand the pain of Mashal’s parents,” he said while gesturing towards Mr Iqbal who was sitting beside him.

In a tweet he posted later in the day, Imran praised the way Mashal’s family was dealing with his tragic death. “This morning I condoled with Mashal’s family and was moved by their amazing courage and dignity.

“They made 2 extremely reasonable requests: First, those involved should be brought to justice so no other family goes through such a suffering,” he said. They also requested that the university be named after Mashal Khan so that his memory lived on, added Imran.

FIR and arrests

In Mardan, the registrar of the university, Dr Sher Alam Khan, told journalists that the seven employees who had been suspended included five permanent staffers. The other two were contract employees.

He said that an FIR (No 233 and dated April 13) had been lodged at the police station of Sheikh Maltoon Town against the suspects. The employees who had been suspended were Muhammad Ajmal, office assistant in the Central Library of Garden Campus; Anas Ali Sangar, office assistant in the botany department; Hanif Ahmed, senior clerk in the biochemistry department; Ali Khan, senior director for P&D; Nawab Ali, attendant in department of physical education and sports; Afsar Khan, superintendent in directorate of academics; and Sajjad Ali, a storekeeper.

Meanwhile, police claimed arresting five more suspects, taking the total number of people arrested in the case to 27.

They were presented in an antiterrorism court in Mardan, which remanded them in police custody for four days.

In a statement made on Monday in the presence of a judicial magistrate, Wajahat Ullah — a student suspected to be involved in the lynching — said that on the fateful day he was called to the office of his department’s chairman where a meeting had been convened to decide about the allegations of blasphemy levelled at Mashal.

He told the meeting that he had personally heard Mashal, Abdullah and Zubair talking against Islam and the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him). Another student, Faheem Alam, verified the statement.

Wajahat alleged that while most people attending the meeting were calm, the security in-charge of the university, Bilal Bakhsh, reached there and warned that anyone taking the side of Mashal and his friends would be dealt with “an iron hand”.

According to him, Bilal said he would kill Mashal. “After this, the people att­ending the meeting turned into a violent mob that rushed towards the hostel where Mashal was,” he added.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2017