PESHAWAR: The anti-terrorism court of the provincial capital will try the remaining accused in the Mashal Khan lynching case besides hearing their bail petitions, ruled a single-member Peshawar High Court bench on Monday.

Chief Justice Yahya Afridi accepted a petition filed by Mashal’s father, Mohammad Iqbal Khan, seeking the transfer of these cases to Peshawar for security reasons.

The petitioner said the main trial of the lynching case was conducted inside the Haripur Central Prison by Abbottabad’s anti-terrorism court on the high court’s orders for security reasons and as the situation was hostile in Mardan, too, the four accused, who were at large when the main trial in the case was over, should be tried by Peshawar’s ATC instead of Mardan’s.

Mashal Khan, a 23-year-old student of the Department of Mass Communication at the Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, was lynched by a mob on Apr 13, 2017, on the allegation of blasphemy.

PHC orders transfer of trial from Mardan to capital city for security reasons

On Feb 7, the an anti-terrorism court had convicted 31 of the 57 accused persons in the lynching case, awarding death sentence to the prime accused, Imran Khan, life imprisonment to five of them, and three-year imprisonment to 25 others.

However, it had acquitted the rest, observing that the prosecution failed to prove charges against them.

The trial court had issued perpetual arrest warrants for four of the then absconding accused, who according to the prosecution had played key role in the offence and had declared them proclaimed offenders.

Three of them, including tehsil councillor Arif Khan, Izharullah alias Johny and Sabir Mayar were later arrested, whereas another prime accused, Asad Katlang, was given an interim pre-arrest bail by the ATC, Abbottabad. He now awaits the bail’s confirmation.

Barrister Amirullah Khan Chamkani, representing the petitioner, said last year, his client had approached the high court for the transfer of the case from Mardan’s anti-terrorism court to Haripur’s as the overall situation in Mardan was hostile to the prosecution and petitioner as certain elements demonstrated for the accused.

He said the main trial was later shifted to the Haripur Central Prison on the high court’s order.

Barrister Amirullah said the trial court, which had ruled that the charge of blasphemy against Mashal Khan were unfounded, had issued the perpetual warrants for the arrest of four absconding accused and declared them proclaimed offenders.

He pointed out that the three of the absconding accused were later on arrested and their bail petitions were pending before the ATC, Abbottabad.

Similarly, the pre-arrest bail of the fourth accused Asad Katlang had also been pending before the court there.

He said as there was no order by the high court about trial of these four accused, it was presumed that the relevant ATC Mardan would conduct the trial.

The counsel said as the atmosphere in Mardan was not suitable for conducting trial there, it would be in the interest of justice to shift the trial and other relevant cases to Peshawar.

The provincial government supported the contention of the petitioner.

The counsel appearing for the accused Asad Katlang opposed the petitioner and contended that presently bail petitions had been pending before the ATC Abbottabad. He added that as the trial was conducted by ATC Abbottabad and therefore, it would be appropriate that the same court should continue with other relevant cases.

In April, the high court had ordered to club all appeals originated out of the ATC’s judgment and conduct its hearing at the principal seat of the court in Peshawar.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2018