18 April 2004	Sunday	27 Safar 1425

PESHAWAR, April 17: A boy on death row for the last six years has requested the president and chief justice of Pakistan to conduct his medical examination as he is a juvenile offender and could not be awarded death sentence under the law.

The boy Mutabar Khan claimed that a presidential notification issued in Dec 2001 whereby death penalties of all the juvenile offenders were commuted to life imprisonment was not applied to him by the government.

He stated that when he was arrested in 1996 after the incident he was 16 and was kept for two years in "munda khana" (minors section) at Peshawar Central prison. He added that this fact could be verified from the prison. Moreover, according to his school leaving certificate issued to him in 1990, six years before the occurrence, he was born on Feb 8, 1980.

The president is the last hope of Mutabar Khan as his mercy petition is pending before him. In September last the president's secretariat had sent his petition to the interior division in Islamabad for disposal.

The boy and his mother Taj Bibi have sent various applications to the president, chief justice of Pakistan and different human rights organizations, requesting that his medical examination would clear the entire situation.

The convict was a resident of Tordher, Swabi district. He was arrested on April 15, 1996 by the police in connection with killing of five persons of the same family. An injured woman, Ms Shehzadgai, had charged him and an absconding accused Gul Taza of attacking her family.