PESHAWAR, Feb 20: A single-member Peshawar High Court bench on Monday dismissed bail plea of a suspected school bomber.

Mehruban Khan is charged with blowing up Aziz Khan Public School in the jurisdiction of Mathra police station on the outskirts of Peshawar on September 21, 2010 by an explosive device.

The accused allegedly remained an absconder before being arrested on August 18, 2011.

He later confessed to the school bombing before a judicial magistrate after remaining in police custody for many days.

During the hearing into Mr Aziz's bail plea, Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan observed that those playing with lives and future of children for money deserved no leniency.

He said the country had been facing external and internal threats and that a large number of innocent men, women and children had so far been killed.

The petitioner's lawyer said his client was falsely implicated in the case and that his confession was secured under duress and coercion. He said no one saw his client plant the explosive device in the school. The state lawyer said the petitioner deserved no leniency as he had already recorded his confessional statement. He added that the accused belonged to a group of people involved in targeting of educational institutions.

The same bench ordered the conducting of medical examination of a woman who is charged with remarrying without securing divorce from her alleged first husband.

It said the woman be examined at the District Headquarters Hospital in Mardan and report of the examination be produced on March 13.

Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan issued orders during the hearing into bail plea of the woman's alleged kidnappers, Jawed Khan, Adil, Noorul Islam, Aalia and Noor Mohammad.

The woman's family alleged that the five kidnapped her in the jurisdiction of Mardan's Takhtbhai police station on December 18, 2012 and that she illegally married to one of them, Jawed, without getting divorce from one of her relatives with whom her nikkah had already been solemnised. It also claimed that the woman was pregnant.-Bureau Report