MNAs Ali Wazir, Mohsin Dawar released from jail as bail goes into effect
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MNAs Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar were released from jail in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Haripur district early on Saturday, Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) and jail sources said, more than two days after the two lawmakers were granted bail by the Peshawar High Court in the Kharqamar attack case.
Dawar and Wazir, who are leaders of the PTM, were warmly received when they came out of the prison after midnight by a large number of PTM workers, who had been waiting outside for nearly six hours.
Abdullah Nangiyal, a PTM member, told DawnNewsTV that Haripur jail authorities had received the legal documents and release orders before 6pm on Friday but the MNAs were released at 12:30am.
"The court order was sent via courier which considerably delayed the release for almost two days," he added.
He said both lawmakers had later travelled to Peshawar to unite with their families.
On Wednesday, the Bannu bench of the high court headed by Justice Nasir Mehfooz had conditionally accepted bail petitions of the MNAs on the condition of furnishing two surety bonds of Rs1 million each. The court directed the two lawmakers to appear before a relevant police officer once a month and barred them from travelling out of the country.
In its detailed order, the bench stated that the conditional bail was granted only for a period of one month, and will be subject to the condition of “good behaviour” by the MNAs and before the expiry of that period they will have to file fresh bail applications in the high court.
Dawar and Wazir were initially charged in an FIR registered at the Counter Terrorism Department (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.
Separately, they were charged in the instant case registered on June 7 at the CTD police station, Bannu, after an improvised explosive device (IED) 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.
A Bannu anti-terrorism court last month had granted bail to the PTM leaders in the second case pertaining to the blast in Doga Macha.
Both Wazir and Dawar were already in CTD custody at the time of the IED blast ─ they had been arrested following the May 26 Kharqamar checkpost attack. Wazir had been taken into custody the day of the attack, while Dawar surrendered himself to security forces a few days later.
