PESHAWAR: A local court has dismissed the pre-arrest bail petition of a man charged with hurling life threats and instigating the people on social media against award-winning social activist Gulalai Ismail.

The petitioner, Hamza Khan, was taken into custody by the personnel of Gulberg police station after the rejection of his petition.

The order was pronounced by additional district and sessions judge Sadia Arshad after the completion of arguments by both parties.

An FIR was registered at the Gulberg police station against the petitioner and suspect on Nov 20, 2017, by Gulalai Ismail, who is the founder of an organisation, Aware Girls.

The case was registered under Section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Pakistan Penal Code, and Section 25-D (causing harassment through obnoxious calls and messages) of the Telegraph Act, 1885.

The complainant in the FIR alleged that the suspect had first created a fake profile on Facebook and uploaded hate material against her with her pictures.

Man charged with threatening Gulalai Ismail, instigating violence against her

She said the suspect through his cellphone number had subsequently posed questions to an internee in her organisation and had asked different questions related to her faith.

The complainant alleged that on Nov 20, the suspect had shared a video message on social media in which he had asked the people to take action against her.

She added that the suspect had dubbed her organisation immoral, non-Muslim, infidel and a curse for society.

The complainant claimed that the suspect in the video vowed that he would kill her (Gulalai) and had also asked other people that if they had opportunity, they should kill her.

Fazal Wahid, lawyer for the complainant, said the suspect was earlier granted interim pre-arrest bail by the court soon after which he staged a ‘so-called’ demonstration in Peshawar against the complainant and again instigated the people to violence against her.

He argued that the suspect was not entitled to the concession of pre-arrest bail as the evidence on record clearly proved that not only he had constantly been intimidating and harassing the complainant but had also been instigating other people against her.

He said the complainant was a known activist and had won several international awards.

The petitioner’s counsel said his client was falsely implicated in the case.

The complainant, who belongs to Swabi district, was awarded the Reach All Women in War Anna Politkovskaya Award last year along with Indian journalist the late Gauri Lankesh.

Her organisation has mostly been working against the culture of violence against women.

In 2016, she and her sister, Saba Ismail, who is the co-founder of the Aware Girls, were given away the Chirac Prize for conflict prevention in Paris.

Meanwhile, the local police said in a news release here that superintendent of police (cantonment) Waseem Riaz had taken notice of the issue and constituted a team headed by DSP Kamal Hussain for probing the case along scientific lines.

They added that the probe team had acquired the concrete evidence against the suspect connecting him with the commission of the offence.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2018