Islamabad: As many as 16 men given a three-year prison term by the trial court that heard Mashal Khan lynching case were on Thursday released by the Haripur jail, following Pehawar High Court’s taking up of appeals filed by these and nine others sentence in the case.
Jail sources confirmed with Daily Times that the men were released as per the directions of the high court. They said the remaining nine men would be released once all legal formalities in their cases were completed.
On February 7, an anti-terrorism court of Abbottabad had sentenced a key suspect to death and handed life terms to four others. It had acquitted 26 men and given three-year prison terms to the 25 whose appeals against the verdict were recently taken up by the high court.
Condemning the move to release the men on bail, Mashal Khan’s father said it was yet another black day in the history of the country. Speaking to Daily Times, he said, “I have started a struggle for the country’s other Mashals but it seems the legal system was not yet ready for doing justice to his son. I will not be silent and I will use all forums available to me to get justice. I appeal to human rights defender and civil society of Pakistan to stand with me and raise their voice for a progressive Pakistan.”
A Supreme Court of Pakistan bench led by Chief Justice of Pakistan Main Saqib Nisar had recently disposed of a suo motu case in the matter after it was told that the ATC had delivered its verdict in the case.
The public prosecutor in Mashal Khan’s murder case, Arif Bilal, told Daily Times on Thursday that it came as a shocking news for all that while Iqbal Lala’s appeal against the ATC verdict was still pending a hearing, the high court had ordered that 25 men convicted in the case at the trial court level could be released on bail.
Published in Daily Times, March 2nd 2018.