Judicial remand: Court sends JUI-F Charsadda GS to jail

Counsel says his clients were arrested so the culprits would go free

PESHAWAR: An anti-terrorism court on Saturday sent JUI-F Charsadda General Secretary Mufti Gohar Ali Shah to Central Prison Peshawar in a murder case. Shah has been accused of killing a man and injuring a police constable in violence which erupted in Charsadda during local bodies’ elections on May 30. 

The general secretary along with other activists – including Wajid, Hazrat Khalil and Taj Muhammad – were produced before the court of Judge Salim Jan Khan.

Muhammad Isa Khan, counsel for the accused, told the court his client Shah had been falsely implicated in the case. According to the counsel, the deceased is his client’s colleague and he did not kill him. Furthermore, he said the police have not arrested the actual suspect in the case.

Isa Khan added his clients were arrested to prevent the culprits from being arrested. He requested the court not to put his client in police custody as it was illegal.

After hearing the argument, the court accepted the plea to not hand over the suspect to the police and sent them to Central Prison Peshawar for 14 days.  The accused’s lawyer also filed a bail application in the same court.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2015.