PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench has set aside conviction of two alleged militants by an anti-terrorism court and acquitted them in a case of possessing explosive substance and arms.

The bench of Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah accepted appeals filed by Ajmal and Sajjad, both residents of Bajaur tribal district, and ruled that the prosecution failed to prove its case against them.

The appellants were convicted by an ATC in Mardan on March 5, 2020. They were sentenced on different counts to 30 years rigorous imprisonment each.

The Counter Terrorism department (CTD) had claimed that the two appellants were arrested last year after receiving information that some members of proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan were planning to target government offices.

Appellants were sentenced by Mardan ATC in explosives case

It was alleged that in a raid, the CTD personnel recovered huge quantity of explosives, detonators and safety fuses, hand grenades and pistols. It was alleged that the appellants were also having maps of important government buildings.

FIR of the occurrence was registered at Mardan CTD police station under section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act, section 15 of Arms Act and section 5 of Explosive Substance Act.

The appellants’ counsel, Shabbir Hussain Gigyani, argued that his clients were charged in a fake case and they were taken into custody much before the alleged occurrence.

He contended that after keeping them in illegal confinement for many weeks, they were finally charged in the instant case.

He pointed out that prosecution did not produce the case property on pretext that the same was destroyed. He added that under the law, recovered explosives should not be destroyed and should be sold out to registered firms.

The counsel said that presently the prosecution had no proof to show that some explosives were recovered from the appellants.

STAY granted: A single-member bench of Justice Sahibzada Asadullah restrained Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) from operating on an FIR against a resident of Charsadda who claimed that a fake case was registered against him and his assets were frozen due to personal grudges of some ANF officials with him.

The bench issued notices to ANF regional director, its assistant director and SHO of Peshawar ANF police station, directing them to respond to the petition filed by Sher Ali on next date.

The petitioner’s counsel, Shabbir Gigyani, stated that his client was receiving threatening telephone calls in 2014 from unknown numbers demanding ransom from him.

He stated that an FIR was registered at Tangi police station in Charsadda and through Call Data Record (CDR) it was detected that the telephone calls were made by Haroon, an official of ANF.

The counsel stated that ANF started implicating Sher Ali in different untraced cases in which he was acquitted. Despite his acquittal, he said, ANF froze his client’s bank accounts and assets.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2020