Hearing of Mashal Khan case adjourned till Nov 1

HARIPUR (Monitoring Desk): Two more witnesses were questioned in the Mashal Khan murder case on Saturday during the eleventh hearing of the case.

The hearing took place in an anti-terrorism court situated in the central jail, with Justice Subhan Khan conducting the hearing.

The hearing for the case was adjourned until November 1, with 43 witnesses having been questioned till today in the case.

Earlier, the prime witness in the case backtracked on his statement during a hearing at the central prison.

Mashal’s father Iqbal Khan and counsel Fazal Khan had confirmed that Sayab turned away from his statement. They alleged that the witness was being pressurised by the accused party, saying they would take the matter to Peshawar High Court.

The witness had earlier said he was present in the crowd at Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan on the day Mashal was killed and that he had seen Imran Ali, the main suspect, open fire on Mashal.

Mashal’s case was moved to Abbottabad on the request of Iqbal. The father did not want the court to pursue the case in Mardan, saying his and his family’s lives were under threat there because the accused were present in Mardan.

Therefore, on July 27, two members of Peshawar High Court bench ordered the case be moved to ATC Abbottabad and shifted the accused to Central Jail Haripur.

On September 19, ATC Abbottabad indicted 57 suspects in Mashal murder case.

Mashal, a journalism student at Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan, was brutally killed by a violent mob on April 13, which had accused him of blasphemy.