Daily Times

MARDAN: Prime accused in Mashal Khan murder case Arif Khan has on Thursday been arrested from Mardan after he came back from a ‘foreign country’. The arrest was made from Mardan’s Ring Road Chamkar area by a special operations team of the police.

In a video that surfaced after Mardan university student Mashal Khan’s lynching last April, Arif Khan, who was also a councillor from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), could be seen boasting about his involvement in the murder.

He went on to claim that he would allow anyone to name him before the police. He had declared that Mashal actually deserved to be killed since he had committed blasphemy. However, the allegations against the youth had later turned out to be false when a 13-member Joint Investigation Team (JIT) formed upon Supreme Court’s orders had reported that none of the charges against Mashal had been found true.

On May 2, it was reported that Arif Khan had fled to Thailand. Awami National Party (ANP) leader Bushra Gohar had alleged PTI MPA from Mardan Iftikhar Mashwani to have helped Arif flee the country.

Arif Khan has now been caught after he allegedly returned to Mardan. Last month, Anti-Terror Court (ATC) had sentenced 1 to death, 5 to 25 years in imprisonment while another 25 to 4 years imprisonment in the case.