PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Friday turned down the bail plea of a man suspected of repeatedly sexually assaulting his teenage daughter in Swat district.

Justice Mohammad Ijaz Khan of a single-member bench observed that the bail petition of the suspect was found meritless and therefore, it was dismissed.

He added that the petitioner was charged by his own daughter with raping her.

The court observed that after the tentative assessment of the available records, the petitioner was connected with the commission of the offence that also fell in the prohibitory clause of Section 497 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, so he was not entitled to the concession of bail.

Orders completion of his trial within three months

It observed that the allegation of the complainant duly find support from medico-legal evidence and that the factum that a girl had charged her real father excluded all possibilities and probabilities of false implication, so the petitioner was prima facie connected with the commission of the offence.

The bench, however, directed the trial court to conclude proceedings in the case within three months.

Along with the petition, the suspect had submitted affidavit of the complainant, who insisted that she had no objection to the grant of bail to the petitioner.

However, the bench observed that the section of law for which the petitioner was charged was non-compoundable and a compromise in such offences could not be considered for the grant of bail to suspects.

The FIR of the sexual assault was registered by the police on June 17, 2022, on the complaint of the girl under sections 376 and 506 of the Pakistan penal Code.

The complainant, who is around 16 years of age, has alleged that the petitioner had been sexually assaulting her for the last three months and had warned her that she would be killed if she told anyone about his acts.

She added that she had requested her father time and again not to assault her, but he didn’t listen.

The petitioner’s counsel contended that his client was innocent and was falsely implicated in the case.

He said that there was no evidence on record to connect the petitioner with the commission of the offence.

The additional sessions judge of Swat had rejected the bail petition of the suspect in the case on July 21 declaring that there was no possibility of ‘mis-identification’ of the suspect as he was the real father of the assault victim.

He had observed that while the girl did not want to prosecute the suspect, yet it was a case pertaining to sacred relation of father and daughter amid the fact that every father was the natural guardian and protector of his daughter.

The judge had added that involvement of any father or any other family members of sacred relations in such heinous offence was against the law and Islam and was detrimental to the society at large and should be strictly discouraged, so the affidavit of the complainant could not be taken into account for the purpose of the grant of bail to the suspect.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2022