BANNU: An anti-terrorism court on Tuesday sent two members of the Natio­nal Assembly, Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar, on judicial remand to the Peshawar central prison after completion of their physical cust­ody with the Counter Terro­rism Department (CTD) in a case of a recent bomb blast which had left four army officials martyred and four others injured.

The court presided over by Judge Babar Ali Khan directed the CTD officials to produce the two on July 9.

They were earlier remanded to the CTD’s custody for six days.

They were produced before the court amid tight security. The CTD officials sought more time for the two to be in physical custody, but the court turned down their plea and sent them on 14-day judicial remand.

The two MNAs, who are leaders of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), were initially charged in an FIR registered at the CTD police station, Bannu, on May 26 after a clash between PTM members and Army personnel near the Kharqamar check post in North Waziristan, which had resulted in the deaths of 13 persons and injuries to several others.

Subsequently, they were charged in the instant case registered on June 7 at the CTD police station, Bannu, after an improvised explosive device exploded on a road in Doga Macha, North Waziristan, when an army convoy was passing through the area. The blast had left four Army officials — a lieutenant colonel, a major, a captain and a lance havildar — martyred.

The complainant in the instant case is the North Waziristan district police officer, Kifayatullah Khan, who alleges that the incid­ent was an outcome of eve­nts wherein the two MNAs had allegedly provoked people against the Pakistan Army through their speeches and instigated them to wage a war against the country and the army.

The FIR was registered under multiple sections of the Pakistan Penal Code, including 121-122, 124, 120-B, 302, 253, 324, 109, 148, 149, 427, section of Explosive Substance Act, section 16 of Maintenance of Public Or­­der Ordinance and Section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act.

Ali Wazir was arrested on May 26 when the clash took place at Kharqamar, where­­as Mohsin Dawar had surrendered on May 30. Both of them were remanded to the CTD’s custody on different dates after their arrest and later on were sent on judicial remand to Peshawar prison. However, last week they were again produced before the court in the present case.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2019