PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has granted bail to a man arrested on the charges of killing a transgender person after sexually assaulting her here a few months ago.

Justice Mohammad Ijaz Khan of a single-member bench accepted the petition of suspect Abdul Basit on condition of furnishing two surety bonds of Rs200,000 each.

Taj Mohammad alias Arzu was killed inside her flat in Tehkal area, Peshawar, on July 8, 2025.

The FIR of the crime was registered at the Tehkal police station under Section 302 (intentional murder) and Section 376 (rape) of Pakistan Penal Code.

The postmortem report confirmed sexual assault before the murder.

Taj Mohammad alias Arzu was killed in a Peshawar flat in July last year

More than two weeks after the incident, the police arrested the petitioner, accusing him for the commission of the offence.

Advocate Malik Behzad Khalil appeared for the petitioner and contended that his client was falsely implicated in the case as there was no evidence against him to connect him with the commission of the offence.

He insisted that initially, unidentified suspects were named for the killing.

The lawyer argued that after 17 days of the murder, the widow of the deceased recorded her statement, with the petitioner being named at the behest of the police.

He said that in her statement, the woman didn’t disclose the “sources of her satisfaction or information” but the same was based on a police investigation.

“The medical evidence was also not against the petitioner and there was no CDR [call data record] produced by the police to prove the presence of the petitioner at the place of occurrence.

The bench observed that in the given facts and circumstances, whether the petitioner had participated in the commission of the offence or not or what was his role in the commission of the offence was a question which had to be determined by the trial court after recording of pro and contra evidence of the parties.

The bench referred to an earlier judgement of the Supreme Court which had held that whenever reasonable doubt arises with regard to the participation of an accused person in the crime or about the truth/probability of the prosecution case and the evidence proposed to be produced in support of the charge, the accused should not be deprived of benefit of bail. In such a situation, the bench observed, it would be better to keep an accused on bail than in jail, during the trial.

“Even otherwise, the challan in the case has already been submitted and as such the custody of accused/ petitioner is neither required nor the same would serve any useful purpose,” the bench ruled.

“Every accused is innocent until their guilt is proved and benefit of doubt can be extended to the accused even at bail stage if the facts of the case so warrant, “ the bench observed in light of the apex court judgements.

It added that the basic philosophy of criminal jurisprudence was that the prosecution had to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and the principle applied at all stages, including pre-trial and even at the time of deciding whether an accused was entitled to bail or not.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2025