ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court sought a fresh report on Thursday from the sessions judge in Kohistan on the alleged honour killing of five girls on the orders of a jirga some years ago.
The two-judge bench, headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, asked the sessions judge and the district police officer to visit the area and verify the claim of K-P police that the five girls were alive and well.
The bench rejected a rights activist’s proposal to get the administration to present the girls before the bench for verification. Justice Ejaz remarked that the Supreme Court, being a constitutional court, could not record evidence in such matters.
K-P Advocate-General Latif Yousafzai submitted an eight-page-long investigation report, claiming that the police made genuine efforts to piece together the facts surrounding the case.
The report also said it “has come to the conclusion that … the allegations made by the petitioner are incorrect”.
The case was reopened in August this year when Afzal Kohistani – on whose application the former chief justice took action in 2012 – filed a fresh plea, informing the court that he had new evidence that the five girls and three of their brothers had been murdered.
On October 19, the apex court gave K-P police two weeks for completing an inquiry in this regard.
According to the police report, submitted on Thursday, over the past two months, the SHO of Pallas police station visited the Gaddar Pallas village and contacted nine persons associated with the inquiry and recorded their statements.
Initially, Muhammad Afzal nominated five persons as witnesses. Statements of three persons were recorded under Section 164 CrPC before the senior civil judge Dassu, Kohistan and statements of two persons were recorded before the judge, Dassu on October 10, in which they denied that the incident ever took place.
Later, the DPO asked Afzal to present evidence to support his claim. The report stated that the petitioner, Muhammad Afzal, a permanent resident of Gaddar in Kohistan district, left his native village permanently along with his family and is residing at Behari Allae village in Battagram district.
