PESHAWAR: An anti-terrorism court on Tuesday fixed Oct 14 for the indictment of three suspects, including the alleged teenage killer of a blasphemy accused inside a courtroom over two months ago.

The court fixed the indictment date after the prosecution produced separate challan (charge sheet) against the teenage suspect under the Juvenile Justice System Act.

The three suspects included the alleged juvenile killer, junior lawyer Tufail Zia and cleric Wasiullah.

The ATC will try the teenage suspect as a juvenile court in line with the orders of the Peshawar High Court that his case should be dealt with under the Juvenile Justice System Act.

Challan produced in ATC against teenage suspect

Judge Tariq Yousafzai is conducting the trial inside the Peshawar Central Prison, where the suspects have been kept.

The FIR of the incident was registered at the East Cantonment police station of Peshawar on July 29 under Section 302 of Pakistan Penal Code, Section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act and Section 15 of Arms Act.

The juvenile suspect was held soon after the killing of Tahir Ahmad Nasim, a US citizen, at the Judicial Complex on Jul 29.

Lawyer Tufail Zia was also taken into custody on the charge of taking a pistol inside the Judicial Complex and handing it over to the alleged killer.

Later, cleric Wasiullah was arrested after his pre-arrest bail was rejected by an anti-terrorism court on Sept 15. He had filed the regular bail petition with the court but withdrew it on Tuesday.

Wasiullah, a resident of Sufaid Dehri area, had also told a judicial magistrate on Sept 18 that the suspects had planned the murder of Tahir Naseem a month before the incident at the office of Tufail Zia.

He had said the suspects had manufactured the gun used in the occurrence through a gunsmith at the cost of Rs17,000 and Tufail was assigned responsibility to take it inside the Judicial Complex.

He had claimed that Tufail had taken the gun to the complex on Jul 16, but due to strict security that day the plan of killing Tahir couldn’t be implemented.

Wasi had said that on the day of the incident, Tufail again managed to take the gun inside the complex and handed it over to the teenage killer inside a washroom.

Suspect Tufail was also a junior counsel representing the complainant, Malik Owais, during the trial against Tahir Ahmad Nasim.

Complainant Malik Owais is a resident of Nowshera and is enrolled in an Islamabad seminary.

A case against the deceased was registered at Sarband police station in Peshawar 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).

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2020