RAWALPINDI, Jan 31: Waleed Aman, the marketing manager of Bahria Town and one of the accused in the car racing case, on Monday moved the Lahore High Court (LHC) for removing the charge of murder from the case registered with Rawat police.

Justice Rauf Ahmed Sheikh of the LHC's Rawalpindi bench will take up the petition filed through Advocate Malik Waheed Anjum on Tuesday (today).

Making prosecutor general Punjab, district public prosecutor Rawalpindi, and the station house officer Rawat respondents, the petitioner, presently in Adiala Jail, has said police initially did not mention murder charge in the FIR.

He said the police added section 302 despite the fact that the district prosecutor did not back the move.

Five people died on December 5 last year when one of the cars in the drag race at Bahria Town's Phase VIII lost control and crashed into spectators.

Waleed, along with Majid Naeem, who was driving the car, Atif Sheikh, one of the organisers of the event, Col (retired) Rafaqat, chief security office Bahria Town, and Ali Riaz, chief executive officer of Bahria Town, have been accused of holding the car race without permission of the district administration.

The petition maintained that under the Punjab Criminal Prosecution Service (Constitution, Functions and Powers) Act 2006, the district prosecutor cannot review his opinion in a criminal case. But in this case, the petitioner said the district prosecutor first observed that section 302 cannot be inserted but later changed his view on the direction of Punjab prosecutor general.

“From the contents of the FIR, no offence under section 302 is made out.

It is a simple case of accident and the driver is holding valid licence. Only the charges of negligence driving can be leveled and that too against the driver,” the petitioner said.

Praying for removing the murder charge, the petitioner asked the court to uphold the decision of the district prosecutor and set aside the order of prosecutor general.

In his letter to district prosecutor on January 24, the prosecutor general maintained that under the criminal procedure code “if the act is done with knowledge that such act is imminently dangerous and that it must in all possibilities cause death, there is no need to ascertain the intention for murder”.

He said the accused knew the race was dangerous and could be fatal but they went ahead with it without getting permission from the district coordination officer.