PESHAWAR, July 20: Bail petitions of former world squash champion Jansher Khan and his brother-in-law were rejected by a local court on Thursday in a case of house trespass and attacking a woman.

The court of judicial magistrate Tilla Mohammad Khan observed that the petitioners, Jansher Khan and Mahboob Khan, were not entitled to be released on bail because offences with which they had been charged were in prohibitory clauses of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Mr Jansher, his brother-in-law and four others were arrested on July 13 after their pre-arrest bail petitions were dismissed by the court of additional district and sessions judge Ahtesham Ali.

The FIR against the six-time British Open champion and his four companions had been registered at the West Cantt police station by Rukhsana Habib on June 7, accusing them of storming into her house in the Lal Kurthi area.

The case had been registered under sections 354A, 448, 506, 148, 149 and 188 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Mr Jansher’s counsel, Gohar Rehman Khattak, argued before the court that his client had been falsely implicated in the case.

He claimed that section 354A was applicable only to those cases when a woman was fully exposed to public view, whereas in the present case the complainant had charged Mr Jansher of tearing her clothes. He claimed that only section 354 was applicable in the case, which dealt with attack on a woman. The maximum sentence in such a case was two years in jail, and it was a bailable offence, he added.

He said no independent witness had been associated in the case who could depose against Mr Jansher. Moreover, he claimed, police in their investigation had found Mr Jansher innocent and had recommended that he should be discharged in the case under section 169, CrPC.

The complainant’s counsel, Hussain Ali, contended that the case in which Mr Jansher and his companions had been charged carried maximum sentence of death and thus they were not entitled to bail.

The complainant, Rukhsana, claimed that her brother-in-law, Abdul Shakoor, who is a retired PAF official, had borrowed Rs1 million from Mr Jansher, who was his friend, in 2003 on the condition that he would pay him interest on bank rate.

She stated that Mr Shakoor had given Mr Jansher documents of the house of her husband, Ghulam Habib, who was his brother.

She claimed that Mr Shakoor had paid Rs1.7 million to Mr Jansher but he was demanding Rs4 million.