APS monument: PHC seeks compliance report from KP govt

PESHAWAR: A division bench of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday sought compliance report from the provincial government about a court order to remove the present monumental structure in the name of Army Public School martyrs and replace it with another one whose design represents the emotions of the families of the victims.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Syed Afsar Shah and Justice Abdul Shakoor directed the Peshawar Development Authority and secretary education KP to submit compliance report of the high court order before December 14, next date of hearing.

The order was passed by a two-member bench comprising Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Muhammad Nasir Mehfooz. It was hearing a case filed by Fazal Khan who had challenged and declared the structure built in the memory of APS students as unsuitable for representing the sacrifices of children. The PHC had directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to remove the “fibreglass monument” and design a reasonable structure that represents the emotions of the victim families.

The petitioner is the father of Sahibzada Umer Khan, one of the students who, along with dozens of others, was martyred in a terrorist attack on the school on the morning of December 16, 2014. He told the court that initially a project concept (PC)-I to build the monument had been approved by the competent authority and the government had provided a grant of Rs15 million for it.

However, the petitioner claimed, when officials of the KP Archives and Libraries Directorate learnt about the project, they started grinding their own axe. “Thus, a revised PC-I was initiated and had it approved whereby a meagre sum of Rs6.6 million was shown to be appropriate for the construction of the monument and allied matters. In the revised plan, the purchase of books was introduced, for which a hefty amount of Rs8.4 million was allocated,” he added.

PHC sets aside life term to 2 in murder case: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) set aside the life imprisonment of two convicts in a murder case. A division bench comprising Justice Ghazanfar Khan and Justice Arshad Ali set aside the conviction of Inam and Sajjad.

Counsel for the convicts, Sahibzada Asadullah, submitted that Bismillah Jan, Muhammad Ayaz, Inam and Sajjad had been convicted for life imprisonment for the murder of Sardar Ali, a resident of Kanju town in the Swat district. He argued that as per the first information report lodged at Kanju Police Station on February 18, 2016, the convicts had allegedly killed Sardar Ali with a knife over a land dispute.

The lawyer argued that one person’s murder with one knife has been claimed against four people in the case, which shows mala fide intention on part of the complainant.

Second, he submitted that the complainant of the case was shown as injured person in the FIR, but as per the medical report, there was no sign of injuries on his body.

Furthermore, he submitted, there was also a conflict in the statements of witnesses, which showed that the appellants have been wrongly convicted in the case.

He requested the court to set aside the life imprisonment term awarded by the trial court.

The court set aside the conviction of Inam and Sajjad, while maintained the life imprisonment of Muhammad Ayaz as another convict, Bismillah Jan, had died during the case.