Mother of convict in APS attack challenges death sentence

PESHAWAR: Mother of a convict, Taj Muhammad alias Rizwan, sentenced to death by a military court in the Army Public School incident has challenged the sentence in the Peshawar High Court.
Nek Maro, widow of Alif Khan, resident of Pawaka area in Peshawar on Thursday filed the writ petition through her lawyer Abdul Latif Afridi against the death sentence awarded to her son Taj Muhammad by the military court in the December 16, 2014 attack on Army Public School Peshawar.
The petitioner claimed that she came to know through the media that her detained son had been awarded death sentence on August 13, 2015. She said the sentence awarded to her son was not based on any evidence as he had no link to the APS incident. She stated that the military court’s order was based on malafide intention and without any jurisdiction.
The Special Military Court, in care of 11 Corps Peshawar, federal government through secretary Defence and secretary Interior, secretary Home and Tribal Affairs and Inspector General Prisons Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were made parties in the petition.
In the grounds of the petition, it was stated that the convict was picked up from his house by personnel of secret agencies accompanied by the officials of Pishtakhara Police Station on February 7. It said her family members were surprised to hear the news regarding his death sentence by the military court.
The petitioner said there was no clue to the whereabouts of the convict after he was taken away. She pointed out that being a displaced person and very poor she could not afford to fight his legal case. She said she gave up efforts to locate her son as it had become the case of a missing person.
However, she admitted in the petition that in 2007 her son had visited South Waziristan along with another tribesman Nazeer where they stayed for 40 days in Wana.
On return, he was reprimanded, warned and was confined in the house by his late father Alif Khan and other relatives, the petition said. It added that initially the convict used to drive a rickshaw purchased for him by his maternal uncle, but after four months it was sold and he started working as daily wager in a construction company.
The petitioner said her son got married in January 2014 and he was with his wife in the Khyber Teaching Hospital for a delivery case from December 16-20, 2014. In the meantime, she said the tragic incident of Army Public School took place on December 16 when the convict was in the hospital for taking care of his seriously ill wife who later gave birth to a child that expired the next day.
The petition stated that though the military courts are valid courts, their verdict and punishment awarded to suspects are subject to the judicial review under the Constitution. Hence, it argued that the high court has jurisdiction to exercise the power of judicial review in respect of the impugned death sentence and judgment of the military court against the convict Taj Muhammad alias Rizwan.
The petitioner argued that any confessional statement shown to have been recorded by Taj Muhammad in which he made a confession was not a voluntary one but had been extracted through violence, coercion, duress and threats and has no legal value. She said the capital punishment awarded to him cannot be based alone on the confessional statement. The petition requested suspension of the death sentence awarded to Taj Muhammad in the APS case or any other case till decision in the writ petition.