Last weekend, Islamabad police caught a man carrying hate material near a shrine, booked him under the Pakistan Penal Code, sent him to jail on a 14-day judicial remand and prepared to put him on trial.

But now they are regretting their haste.

It is not that police lack evidence to prove the charge, for they had seized hundreds of audio-cassettes, CDs, DVDs and printed material from the accused when they arrested him near Khanna Bridge on March 8. Police had caught the man on intelligence that he was carrying the stuff to Sain Boota Darbar, situated on a green belt along the Islamabad Expressway.

Their worry is that they could be accused of not giving “due deliberation” to the appropriate law in framing the charge. And these days it is deemed to be the Anti-Terrorism Act.

It is said the informant made the police realise their lapse by pointing out such possibilities as the carrier of hate material belonging to some banned militant group. After all, he was heading with the provocative material for the Darbar which stands next to Qasr-e-Sakina Imambargah, which has been twice attacked by suicide bombers.

A resident of New Shakarial in Rawalpindi, the man was carrying hate material containing audio, video and printed versions of inflammatory speeches of religious leaders of banned groups. Indeed, for many the material would be as explosive as the suicide jacket that killed five people in the latest attack on the Imambargah on February 18.

In panic over treating the incident “routinely and not seriously”, the SP Rural Zone sought the advice of the prosecution department of police about adding Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act in the charge sheet against the accused. But the advice is yet to arrive.

In the case registered with the Shahzad Town police, the charge has been framed under PPC 188 which deals with “disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant”.

Addition of Section 7 of ATA concerns punishment for acts of terror. Its clauses (b) and (c) and (d) equate the possessing, displaying, publishing or distributing any material in written, audio or video forms, “which is threatening, abusive or insulting” as acts of terror.

Police investigators allegedly did not give thought to investigating how and from where the accused got the hate material in such a bulk.

But then the police had a bitter experience when they did in hauling up a local leader of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) and his armed guards for violating the ban on public display of arms on December 31.

ASWJ’s Rawalpindi President Mufti Tanveer Alam Farooqui and his gunmen had to be released on bail after Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar upbraided the police for slamming “improper charges” that led to their arrest.

Two police officers were suspended by the minister, although police said Mufti Farooqui was a proclaimed offender and wanted by Rawalpindi police in connection with two cases.

Fear of similar action again is pushing the police to add terrorism charges against the man arrested for carrying hate material.

Some police officers however feel that law enforcers had been neglectful of the sectarian conflict but the war declared against the terrorists in the aftermath of the December 16massacre of schoolchildren in Peshawar has perked them up.

Published in Dawn March 16th , 2015

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