PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court has rejected bail plea of a suspect arrested on charges of committing honour-related double-murder of his wife and a male relative in district Dir Lower.

A single-member bench of Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar pronounced that tentatively the material on record showed prima facie involvement of the petitioner name Razi Khan in committing honour killing of two persons, therefore, the court was not inclined to release him on bail.

An assistant advocate general, Khwaja Salahuddin and lawyer for the complainant side, Safdar Naseer, contended that the petitioner was directly charged for the commission of the offence and he didn’t deserve any leniency.

The FIR of the occurrence was registered at Khall police station in Dir Lower on Oct 22, 2023, under section 302 and 311 of Pakistan Penal Code.

The station house officer (SHO) of the police station Bahadurzaib Khan was complainant in the FIR who stated that he had received information that dead bodies of a man and woman were brought to the local hospital.

He stated that when he reached the hospital he found out that the deceased were killed by husband of the woman named Razi Khan (petitioner).

He said that the deceased man was husband of the suspect’s sister-in-law and he suspected that the deceased persons were having an affair. He added that the deceased were killed inside the residence of the suspect Razi Khan.

The petitioner’s counsel contended that his client was falsely implicated in the case and there was no eye witness to the occurrence.

The bench observed that the petitioner had directly been indicted for the honour killings of his wife and his sister-in-law’s husband inside his house.

The bench further observed that the petitioner had also recorded his confessional statement before the competent court which could not be disbelieved at this stage.

“The version of the prosecution and confession of the petitioner are prima facie corroborated by recovery of blood of both the deceased and crime empties (of pistol) from the spot besides post-mortem reports of the deceased persons are also in line with the contents of the FIR,” the bench ruled observing that the petitioner had also made pointation of the place of occurrence during which the crime weapon pistol was also recovered from his residential room.

Earlier, an additional sessions judge in Dir Lower had also rejected bail plea of the petitioner on Dec 14, 2023.

That court had observed that as the double-murder was allegedly committed on pretext of honour, therefore, if the court released the petitioner on bail it would result in insecurity and intolerance in the society and would also encourage elements involved in such like offences.

The court had observed that elements involved in such like offences should be discouraged.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2024