PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday issued a stay order stopping the local police from arresting a man suspected of carrying out a campaign against polio vaccination on social media and sought comments from the home secretary and inspector general of police on the matter within a fortnight.

A bench consisting of Justice Roohul Amin Khan Chamkani and Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar issued notices to the home secretary, IGP and Mathra police station’s head on a petition of suspect Azmat Khan seeking the cancellation of an FIR against him.

Azmat has been charged with waging war against the state and inciting people to riot.

Danyal Asad Chamkani, lawyer for the petitioner, said an FIR was registered against his client at Mathra police station on Aug 27.

He said the police had alleged that the petitioner propagated against anti-polio vaccine through his social media accounts by declaring the children’s vaccination against the injunctions of Islam.

The lawyer said the police had falsely accused his client of trying to incite people against the state through his social media posts.

The lawyer said that under the Code of Criminal Procedure, the police couldn’t register an FIR for those offences without the government’s prior permission.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2019