Health DG asked to clarify report on murder suspect’s fitness

The court has found the report to be ambiguous

LAHORE: An additional district and sessions judge has summoned the Health Services director general to clarify a recent medical report on the mental state of a murder suspect whose trial was suspended 18 years ago on grounds that he was not fit to stand trial.

The board, formed on the request of the complainant, was asked to examine the suspect, Muhammad Mushtaq alias Malangi, and determine if he was now fit to stand trial.

In its report submitted in the court, the medical board said that the suspect was suffering from paranoid psychosis (a disorder in which a person cannot tell real from imagined). However, it added, he was undergoing treatment and seemed fit for trial. Calling the report ambiguous, the court on Friday directed the Health Services DG to explain the matter by April 5.

Mushtaq’s trial had been adjourned sine-die (with no specific date of resumption of hearing) on May 19, 1998. The case was sent to the record room with directions that hearing would resume when the suspect was found to be mentally fit to defend himself in the court.

Earlier, a medical examination arranged on the request of Mushtaq’s counsel had confirmed that he was mentally unfit to stand a trial.

The examination had been carried out by a board headed by the then Health director general.

In an FIR registered at Naulakha police station in 1994, Mushtaq had been accused of stabbing to death one Abdur Rasheed following a quarrel. It had said that the Rasheed had forbidden Mushtaq from using foul language.

In his statement to the police, Mushtaq had denied the murder charge and said that some people had taken him to the police after rescuing him from a group of children who were chasing him away and throwing stones at him. He said his wife and children had been missing for six years and he was upset over the matter. He said he had been roaming about in search of his family since then.

On the recovery of a blood stained knife from his house, the suspect had said that it was possibly planted to implicate him in the case.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, advocate Farhad Ali Shah, counsel for the suspect, said his client was still not fit to stand the trial.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2016.