PESHAWAR: An anti-terrorism court here on Saturday recorded the statement of Mohammad Iqbal during the trial of four of many people charged with lynching his son, Mashal Khan, in the Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, in 2017.

The accused, including Asad Katlang, Sabir Mayar, Arif Khan and Izharullah alias Johny, who were arrested after remaining at large for a long time, were indicted on Sept 11, 2018, for involvement in the killing of Mashal Khan.

The court, which has been conducting in-camera proceedings, fixed Jan 19 for the next hearing after summoning some other prosecution witnesses.

Mashal’s father, Mohammad Iqbal, is also a complainant in the case.

Barrister Amirullah Khan Chamkani, Shah Khattak and Fazal Khan represented Mohammad Iqbal in the case.

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

On Feb 7, an anti-terrorism court had convicted 31 of the 57 accused 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, the court, which conducted the trial inside the Haripur Central Prison, had acquitted 26 of the accused, observing that the prosecution failed to prove the charges against them.

It had also declared the allegation of blasphemy against Mashal false.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2019