PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has rejected the bail petition of a man charged with sexually assaulting a minor boy in Kohat around two months ago.

Justice Roohul Amin Khan of a single-member bench observed that the tentative assessment of the material available on record suggested that the accused in the assault case was prima facie connected with the heinous offence, whose punishment fell in the prohibitory clause of Section 497 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The accused was named in an FIR registered by a Kohat police station on Aug 15, 2022, on the complaint of a minor boy, who was accompanied by his father.

He was charged under Section 377 (unnatural offence) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 53 (sexual abuse) of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act.

Imad Khalil, lawyer for the boy, said that the accused was directly named by the alleged assault victim, while the evidence available on record clearly connected him with the commission of the offence.

He said that the boy was the neighbour of the accused, who sexually assaulted the former in his bethak (drawing room) and threatened to kill him if the offence was reported.

The lawyer said that the boy returned home crying and informed his family about the assault.

He argued that the accused was booked for a non-bailable offence, so he was not entitled to the concession of bail under Section 497 of the CrPC.

Assistant advocate general Sophia Noreen appeared before the court for the state and opposed the grant of bail to the accused.

The bench observed that the complainant was medically examined by a doctor and the medical examination’s report confirmed the sexual assault.

It added that the accused, too, was checked by a medical doctor, whose report revealed that the accused was capable of committing the crime in question.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2022