PESHAWAR: Awami National Party general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain has decided amid ‘pressure and threats’ to take up legal battle to get justice for his son Mian Rashid Hussain, whom he lost in a targeted killing incident back in 2010 in his hometown Pabbi.

Addressing a press briefing on intra-party elections, he couldn’t help to talk about the pressure and threats he was facing regarding his slain son’s case.

Without naming anyone in particular, he said he was being pressurised by government machinery to take his son’s case back and do not challenge the bail of the accused. However, he said that he would not back down.

The ANP leader said that he decided to start a legal battle after he received information that accused in his son’s murder case had applied for bail. He claimed that after killing of his son in a terrorist attack in 2010, Sindh police few months later arrested a man identified as Qayyum Mehsud, who along with other crimes confessed to murder of Mian Rashid Hussain. The accused was also identified by a relative of Mian Iftikhar Hussain.

Mian Iftikhar says he is consulting lawyers

The ANP leader said that he was thinking that the accused would have been hanged by then but recently he came to know that he had applied for bail. He said that the people fighting his case in the court were indirectly sending him messages not to create any hurdle in the bail.

Mr Hussain said that the government on one hand acknowledged his sacrifices against terrorism by bestowing Hilal-i-Imtiaz on him after his son was killed and then his killer was allowed to apply for bail.

Among 1,000 workers of ANP, he said, the killer of his son was arrested and according to police he confessed during interrogation, but still no punishment was awarded by the court in the case. Many ANP workers were killed but no legal action could be taken against the killers as some terrorist organisations instead of an individual claimed responsibility for those incidents. In his son’s case, the accused confessed to his crime.

“This is the reason I am going to start a legal battle to get justice for my slain son. I have gathered lawyers and would be taking this fight to the court,” said Mr Hussain. He said that there should be zero tolerance for terrorists as it was declared in National Action Plan but in practice the government was not taking action at least in his son’s murder case.

INTRA-PARTY POLLS: ANP has announced schedule for intra-party elections for district and provincial bodies of the party.

ANP general secretary and election commissioner Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that the polls would be for district as well as provincial body including Saraiki unit.

The five units -- four provinces and Saraiki unit -- would complete the elections in April whereas the central council elections would be held on May 2.

Other members of the election commission include Syed Aqil Shah (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Shafique Ahmed (Punjab), Younas Buneri ( Sindh) and Daud Achakzai (Balochistan).

Mr Hussain said that elections for provincial oraganisation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be held on April 10, in Punjab on April 12, in Sindh on April 14 and in Balochistan on April 17.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2019