PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Wednesday stayed the transfer of former Islamabad inspector general of police’s daughter-in-law murder trial to Punjab province from Peshawar by the provincial home department and directed the home secretary to file reply to a petition challenging that act.

The bench comprising PHC Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan suspended the order of home department and ordered the respondents including the home secretary, director general prosecution and complainant in the case to file replies and explain how a trial pending before a court in Peshawar could be transferred to another province by the department.

The bench was hearing a writ petition filed by a prominent businessman, Darya Khan Bangash, the father of the deceased woman Waheeda alias Palwasha, daughter-in-law of the then Islamabad IGP Bin Yamin. The woman had died under mysterious circumstances on May 19, 2013.

The complainant in the case is Ms Zahida, mother of the deceased, who has charged close family members for the alleged murder of Ms Waheeda including the present petitioner.

Advocate Hamad Hassan appeared for the petitioner and argued that the murder case of Ms Waheeda was registered at University Town police station and presently an additional district and sessions judge in Peshawar had been conducting trial in it.

PHC directs home secretary to file reply to petition

He stated that the complainant in the case had filed an application with the home secretary requesting that the case should be transferred to Punjab as she was not having confidence in courts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He stated that KP home department had sent a letter to Punjab home department in that regard and the latter had sent a no objection certificate for transferring the case to Punjab province.

The counsel stated that home department then sent a letter to Punjab home department, asking it to depute an officer for taking the relevant record so that the trial of the case could be conducted by a court there. He argued that the home department had no legal authority to shift murder trial from one province to another. He requested the bench to set aside the said order and issue directives for continuation of trial in Peshawar.

It merits a mention that the instant case had assumed fame when the then Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry took suo moto notice of it.

The deceased was married to Ali Amin, son of Bin Yamin, and was having two children. She had come to the residence of her parents along with her children from Islamabad and in the morning she was found dead. The local police were initially reluctant to register FIR following which the case was registered in Islamabad.

Later on, Peshawar’s University Town police station registered FIR of the death of Ms Waheeda, on the directives of Supreme Court of Pakistan on July 10, 2013.

Following registration of the FIR the two suspects, Khalid and Fauzia, stated to be brother and sister-in-law of the deceased were arrested and were subsequently granted bail by different courts.

The complainant had charged her husband, Darya Khan Bangash, her son Khalid and her daughter-in-law Fauzia for the commission of the offence. She suspected that her daughter had not died of natural death and was in fact killed by the suspects.

Published in Dawn October 20th, 2016