PESHAWAR: A local court sent a junior lawyer to jail on 14-day remand here on Saturday after he rejected the charge of facilitating the killing of a blasphemy accused by providing a pistol to the suspected teenage killer.

A team of local police brought Tufail Zia to the Judicial Complex on the completion of his three-day physical remand and produced him before an anti-terrorism court for recording confessional statement in the case under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The court referred the suspect to a judicial magistrate for the purpose.

He, however, rejected the charge and said he didn’t want to record confessional statement.

The court sent him to the Peshawar Central Prison on judicial remand.

Shabbir Hussain Gigyani, Inamullah Yousafzai and other lawyers for the lawyer said the police had arrested their client to twist facts and spoil the case of the prime suspect.

Peshawar court sends him to jail on remand

The lawyer was arrested on Tuesday and was remanded by the court in police custody on Wednesday for three days.

Interestingly, initially when he was produced before the ATC on Aug 19 and police was seeking his physical custody, he had told the court that there was no need of his remand as he was willing to confess that her had facilitated the prime suspect. However, as the police officials had stated that they want to further interrogate him, therefore, his physical custody was granted by the court.

One of his counsels told Dawn that his initial statement might be under duress and coercion by the police.

Suspect Tufail Zia was also a junior counsel representing the complainant, Malik Owais, a resident of Nowshera studying in a seminary in Islamabad, in the trial against deceased Tahir Ahmad Nasim, who was also a US citizen.

The suspected teenage killer was apprehended soon after the killing of the blasphemy accused inside the courtroom on July 29. He has been kept at the Peshawar Central Prison on judicial remand.

The FIR of the incident was registered at the East Cantonment police station under Section 302 of Pakistan Penal Code, Section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act and Section 15 of Arms Act.

The body of the suspected blasphemer was handed over to the US Consul General in Peshawar on Aug 14 and was repatriated to the US on Aug 15.

The family members of the deceased, including his daughters based in Illinois, USA, had issued a general power of attorney on July 30 in favour of the US Consul General in Peshawar for the repatriation of the remains of the deceased.

A case against the deceased was registered here at Sarband Police Station on Apr 25, 2018, under Pakistan Penal Code sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups), 295-A (acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class), 295-B (defiling Holy Quran), 295-C (derogatory remarks in respect of Holy Prophet) and 298 (uttering words to wound religious feelings).

Complainant Malik Owais had charged the deceased of making false religious claims that he was a prophet and that he received Divine Revelations in dreams.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2020