PESHAWAR, Sept 18: The Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court has appointed the District and Sessions Judge Peshawar, Ziauddin Khattak, inquiry officer for conducting a judicial inquiry into the killing of a union Nazim and events leading to violence in Pishtakhara area on Monday last.

The Chief Justice, Mian Shakirullah Jan, issued the order on Wednesday. An official at the sessions court told Dawn that they had yet to receive the concerned file following which proceedings would be started and witnesses summoned.

Meanwhile, a 50-member jirga, consisting of Khalil tribe to which the slain Nazim belonged, has been formed to hold meetings with NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah to apprise him of the highhandedness of the police. The Jirga members have been drawn from the surrounding villages of Pishtakhara, Hazarkhawani, Badabher, Pawaka, Tekhkal, Bahadar Killay, Qamar Din Garhi and Surezai, etc., which are largely inhibited by Khalil tribe.

The ASP Cantonment area and SHO Pishtakhara police station, who has been charged in the FIR for killing the Nazim, have been suspended on Tuesday.

The chief of the Capital City Police, Khursheed Alam, told Dawn both the suspended officials would be arrested as soon as they received such orders from the judicial commission, which is probing into the incident, or by the IG Police, but said they had to wait for the inquiry report to move further.

According to the postmortem report, Fayyaz Khalil died of a bullet which remained in his head. The report also indicated that the bullet was fired from a distance.

SHO Shakirrualh Bangash told Dawn that some miscreants started firing on the protesters, which killed the Nazim.

Bangash said he was on duty at some other place when asked by the ASP to come to the Customs Chowk where the people had gathered in a large number. After arriving at the scene, he said, the police fired teargas in order to disperse the angry mob. The enraged people, he further said, started pelting the police with stones, burnt tyres and put one motorcycle to torch.

He said the police went back from the scene after throwing teargas shells because they wanted to cool down the situation. According to him, the protesters, led by the Nazim, were also engaged in aerial firing in the air.

“It was after one hour that we came to know about the death of the Nazim. He might have fallen victim to the bullets of some miscreants,” said Bangash, adding that the slain Nazim was his best friend and he could not even think of firing at him. “The killing has shocked me more than anyone else,” he said.

The situation in Pishtakhara area remained tense and the paramilitary forces have been deployed there. The paramilitary forces, in the armoured vehicles, have been patrolling the area. Fear continues to dominate the area and the people have yet to begin their normal lives.