PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday ordered transfer of the high profile Mashal Khan lynching case to Abbottabad anti-terrorism court and trial of the case inside Haripur Central Prison.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim issued the order over an application submitted by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa home department seeking transfer of the case from Mardan due to security reasons.

The home department had applied to the chief justice for shifting trial of the lynching incident under section 28 (1A) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

Mashal, a 23-year-old student of Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, was lynched by a mob,including students, staff members and outsiders on campus, on Apr 13 on blasphemy charge.

A writ petition was also filed byMashal`s father Iqbal Khan for transferring the case to any other district from Mardan.

He had stated that the open trial in a matter of a very sensitive nature is not possible andtherefore,thetrialshouldbe conducted inside the jail to protect witnesses, lawyers and judges from any harm.

Advocate Abdul Lateef Afridi and several other counsels appeared for Iqbal Khan, but they did not press their petition after the government had also filed the instant application for transferring the case.

Mr Afridi told the bench that when the government had also moved the court for shifting of the trial the court may issue appropriate order on that application.

An additional advocate general, Mian Arshid Jan, appeared for the provincial government and contended that Haripur Central Prison was the safest place for conducting the trial.

He said that due to sensitivity of the case and situation, which had emerged after the incident, holding trial in Mardan was not suitable.

Earlier, the provincial government had supported the contention of Iqbal Khan andthe advocate general had stated that the government had no objection over shifting of the trial.

During previous hearing on July 20 the bench had inquired from the AAG whether the provincial government intended to file an application for transferring of the case under section 28 (1A) of the ATA. The AAG had informed the court an application in that regard would be filed by the home department.

While Iqbal Khan turned up along with several civil society activists, relatives of the suspects arrested in the case also attended the proceedings in large number.

Several advocates including Yousaf Shah, Syed Akber Ali Shah and Inayat Bacha appeared for the arrested suspects and opposed the government application.

They contended that the government had been favouring the petitioner, Iqbal Khan, and had even copied some of the paragraphs from his writ petition in its application.

They argued that the accused persons were in large number and they would have to be shifted to Haripur prison and their relatives would also have to visit that district to meet them and attend proceedings.They contended that Mardan prison was a high security prison and suitable for conducting the trial.

They stated that if so ordered by the court the relatives of the accused person would not visit the Mardan prison during trial of the case.

The AAG Mian Arshid Jan quoted Section 28 (1A) of ATA stating that if it appeared to the government that it would be in the interest of justice or expedient for protection and safety of judges, witnesses or prosecutors, it may apply to the chief justice of the high court concerned for transfer of a case from an anti-terrorism court falling within its jurisdiction to another.

He contended that around 57 accused personshadbeen arrestedinthiscase andit would be difficult for the government to make security arrangements for holding the trial in Mardan.

Following the court`s order, Iqbal Khan told media person that he had been fighting this case so that in future no other Mashal was killed in such a brutal manner. He added that he had no enmity with any of the arrested suspects and he had approached the court only to get justice.