MANSEHRA: An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) indicted on Tuesday all 57 suspects in the Mashal Khan lynching case.

The court held its proceedings inside the Haripur jail where strict security measures were put in place. The roads leading to the jail were sealed and a heavy contingent of police was deployed to prevent any untoward incident.

All the accused have pleaded not guilty, an official said. Regular hearings of the case will also be held inside the jail’s premises in which the prosecution and defence will present their arguments.

Mashal Khan, a journalism student at the Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan, was killed in April after a charged mob beat and shot him for allegedly publishing blasphemous content online.

A report compiled by a 13-member team investigating the incident stated that a group of people in the university incited the mob on the pretext of blasphemy. The team found no proof that Mashal Khan had ever committed the offence.

The report said that Mashal Khan had been vocal about the rights of students at the university and even challenged the appointment of a new vice chancellor (VC) to ensure that students were able to obtain their degrees, which is not possible without the VC’s signature.

Mashal Khan was murdered in line with a plan allegedly hatched by Sabir Mayar, the president of the Pakhtun Students Federation (PSF), and Ajmal, the president of the university’s employees association, the report found.

According to the report, Mr Mayar viewed Mashal Khan’s stance against activities on the campus to be a threat to the PSF.

In July, a Peshawar High Court bench ordered transfer of the high-profile lynching case from Mardan to the Abbottabad ATC.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim issued the order over an application submitted by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa home department seeking transfer of the case from Mardan due to security reasons.

The home department had applied to the chief justice for shifting trial of the lynching incident under section 28 (1a) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

A writ petition was also filed by Mashal Khan’s father Iqbal Khan for transferring the case to any other district from Mardan.

He stated that the open trial in a matter of a very sensitive nature was not possible and therefore the trial should be conducted inside the jail to protect witnesses, lawyers and judges from any harm.

Iqbal Khan also requested the high court to pay his lawyer’s fee and asked the Supreme Court to provide protection to his daughters, who haven’t been to school since Mashal Khan’s murder.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2017