Mashal Khan murder case: ATC to announce verdict on Mar 16

PESHAWAR (92 News) – An Anti-terrorism court on Tuesday reserved the verdict of the Mashal Khan murder case, which will be announced on March 16. The court after hearing arguments from both the sides and reserved its verdict. As many as 46 witnesses and father of Mashal have already recorded their statements in the case. The current case pertains to the four suspects that were absconding from court during the first trial. Nearly 50 prosecution witnesses testified against the suspects during the course of the hearing conducted inside Haripur Central Jail. The prosecution charged 61 people in the case, while 57 of them were arrested and produced before the court for trial. Case proceedings started on June 21, 2018 once the absconding suspects surrendered themselves to the court of law. On Tuesday, both sides finished their arguments, after which the verdict was reserved by ATC-3 Judge Mahmoodul Hassan Khattak. The government's lawyer in the case, Barrister Amirullah Chamkani, expressed hope that the court would award the maximum amount of punishment to the accused men. It is pertinent to mention here that Mashal Khan, 23, a student of Mass Communications at Mardan's Abdul Wali Khan University, was beaten and shot to death by an angry mob on April 13, 2017, after he was accused of blasphemy. The lynching took place within the premises of the university and was caught on video which later circulated on social media. The horrific incident shocked the nation and sparked a debate over the misuse of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan. Death sentence Prime accused Imran Ali, who had confessed to shooting Mashal before a judicial magistrate, was sentenced last year on two counts to death by hanging. He was handed a death sentence under Section 302(b) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), and another death sentence along with a Rs100,000 fine under Section 7(1)(a) of the Anti Terrorism Act. Separately, he was awarded five years of rigorous imprisonment under Section 15 AA-KPK, along with a fine of Rs50,000.