Islamabad court attack:Judge Rafaqat Ahmed Khan Awan with liberal views targeted

Additional district and sessions judge Rafaqat Ahmed Khan Awan, who was killed in the terrorist attack on Monday, was about to complete the probationary period after which he would be confirmed as a judge in a couple of months. Known for his liberal views, Awan was a young judge who had a year ago dismissed a petition that asked that an FIR be registered against former president Pervez Musharraf. On April 24 last year, he dismissed a petition which was filed by the son of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi who asked that an FIR be registered against former president Pervez Musharraf for launching the 2007 operation on the mosque. Rejecting the petition, Awan observed that after a lapse of seven years the petition had simply been filed to gain cheap publicity. He did his LLB in 1997 and got an internship in the chamber of former deputy attorney general Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri in 1998. He then started practice as an independent lawyer but later went to Canada from where he returned about five years ago and started practicing in Islamabad. In 2012, he passed the Islamabad Judicial Service examination and was appointed as an additional district and sessions judge. His two years probation was about to end. In fact, minutes before his death, Awan was talking about his probation with the counsel of a school. He had admitted the appeal of the school against a stay order that had been passed against the admission process in the school. The stay was given on the petition of a lawyer who filed it after his children were denied admission by the management of the school.