PESHAWAR: Advocate General Abdul Lateef Yousafzai told a Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday that the provincial government has no objection in shifting of the Mashal khan lynching case from Mardan’s anti-terrorism court to some other in the province and the holding of trial inside prison.
The client of a lawyer for several suspects arrested in the case opposed the appeal of Mashal’s father, Iqbal khan for the case’s transfer and that they wanted to become respondents in the petition.
Till the hearing of further orders, Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Abdul Shakoor asked the lawyer to file his clients’ written objections to the petition with the court.
They also requested the government to produce the case’s records.
Expressing his confidence in the findings of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in the lynching case of his son Mashal Khan, Muhammad Iqbal has filed a request through his lawyers under Section 28 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 for shifting the legal proceedings to Peshawar High Court as he couldn’t face the powerful killers in Mardan.
Speaking at a press conference, Iqbal Khan said that he was summoned to appear at the hearing of the killing of Mashal Khan. “I was asked to appear on Monday, June 5. However, I cannot go to Mardan. The killers of Mashal Khan are very resourceful persons. The JIT itself accepts that the killers include professional criminals,” Iqbal said.
His lawyer, Muzamil Khan, requested the bench to ask the trial not to submit charge sheet (challan) of the case to the ATC in Mardan until the disposal of his petition.
Mashal, a 23-year-old student of the Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, was killed by a mob on the charge of blasphemy, on Apr 13.
Iqbal khan said in the petition that in such a sensitive matter the open trial was not possible and therefore, to avoid any harm the trial should be held inside the jail.
