PESHAWAR: The acquittal of 26 accused persons in Mashal Khan’s lynching case by an anti terrorism court was challenged in the Peshawar High Court on Wednesday by Mashal’s brother Aimal Iqbal Khan requesting to set aside their acquittal and award them death penalty as there were sufficient evidence against them.

Aimal Khan filed an appeal with the court saying the trial court miserably failed to appreciate the ocular and circumstantial evidence in respect of the acquittal of the 26 accused persons.

On Feb 7, an anti-terrorism court had convicted 31 of the 57 accused persons in the Mashal lynching case awarding death sentence to the prime accused, life imprisonment to five of them and three years imprisonment to 25.

Brother of student killed by mob seeks death penalty for all accused

However, the ATC, which had conducted the trial inside the Haripur Central Prison, acquitted 26 of the accused persons, observing that the prosecution failed to prove the charges against them.

After filing the appeal, Aimal Khan told reporters that his family had been pursuing this case so that no one suffered like Mashal Khan.

“After their acquittal, the accused persons were awarded a warm welcome near Rashaki Interchange with some of them clearly pronouncing that they’re involved in the murder of Mashal Khan,” he said, adding that they would produce footage of those pronouncements in the court.

The appeal was filed by a panel of lawyers, including Ayaz Khan, Barrister Ameerullah Khan Chamkani, Fazal Khan and Shahabuddin Khattak.

The appellant said the trial court admitted in the judgment that the prosecution proved their charges leveled against the accused facing trial without any shadow of doubt but unfortunately, no plausible reason was given by the trial court while acquitting the said 26 persons and therefore, the said judgment was not sustainable in the eyes of law and was liable to be set aside.

He said it was an ‘admitted fact’ that the acquitted 26 persons were part of the mob gathered inside the Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, with a common object to kill Mashal Khan over the baseless blasphemy allegations.

The appellant added that the trial court also admitted that the 26 accused persons were present at the site of lynching and therefore, there was no contradiction in prosecution evidence.

He added that the liability of all accused persons were one and the same and so, their acquittal was illegal and unlawful.

The appellant contended that the offences/ charges for which all the accused persons were charged are not only heinous and brutal in nature, but also against humanity and society, and acquittal of the 26 persons was against the norms of Islam.

He contended that the acquittal of 26 accused persons were also against the golden principles of Qisas and such like offences were restricted through capital punishment for the reason to set principles for the future of the society and never allowed the law to take lenient view in shape of acquittal and hence, the acquittal of the accused was liable to be set aside and they were convicted for capital punishment.

The appellant claimed that the foundation of the prosecution case was a preplanned conspiracy for the murder of Mashal Khan and for that purpose, all the accused facing trial including acquitted ones had gathered inside the university and they were visible in the videos and that the prosecution had assigned them their respective roles in the murder.

Lawyer Ayaz Khan told reporters that he would also file four other appeals in the case against the quantum of sentences awarded to the 31 convicts.

He said his client’s family was being pressured by the families of the accused persons but it was committed to pursing the case until the end. The lawyer said the provincial government had not given any security to Mashal’s family.

Meanwhile, an official handout revealed that the provincial government had hired services of Barrister Ameerullah Chamkani for helping Mashal’s family in the appeal.The acquitted accused persons include Saniullah, Shahzad, Sajid Ali, Irfanullah, Anas, Shabir Ahmed, Sajid Katlang, Sohrab, Usman, Asif, Suleman, Jalal, Ajmal Mayar, Ali Hussain, Basharat, Ashfaqur Rehman, Ghayoor Alam, Ehzaz, Abbas Sheno, Hamad, Syed Wajid Ali, Saeed Shankar, Afsar Khan, Hazrat Bilal, Mohammad Shafee and Shehzad.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2018