KARACHI: Former MNA Ali Wazir of the outlawed Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) has been released from Sukkur prison after the Sindh High Court granted him bail in a sedition case, it emerged on Monday.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) welcomed his release and said that his prolonged incarceration despite repeated court orders had raised serious concerns about due process and personal liberty.

Earlier on Saturday, a constitutional bench of the SHC in Hyderabad had granted him bail in a case registered against him under Sections 123-A (condemnation of the creation of the State, and advocacy of abolition of its sovereignty) and 124-A (sedition) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Sections 6/7 the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 registered at the Nawabshah Airport police station last year.

The PTM leader, through his lawyer, had filed a petition seeking his release and after hearing both sides, the bench comprising Justice Arbab Ali Hakro and Justice Riazat Ali Sahar granted him bail against a solvent surety of Rs50,000.

Initially, the case was pending before an antiterrorism court in Shaheed Benazirabad and thereafter, the trial court had referred it to the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA).

During the hearing before the SHC, a federal law officer filed a compliance report on behalf of the NCCIA, stating that all possible cybercrime angles were meticulously examined, but no cybercrime-related facts were discovered against the accused/petitioner.

The bench in it order noted that as per the specialised investigative agency, the allegations did not fall within the ambit of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 and no incriminating evidence existed against the petitioner.

Therefore, it said that his continued incarceration would amount to detention without lawful justification as neither investigation nor trial was pending before any competent forum.

“Where the investigative process has culminated in a report exonerating the accused and no competent forum is seized of the matter for trial, the liberty of the citizen must prevail over speculative apprehensions. The court, therefore, cannot remain a silent spectator to the indefinite incarceration of a person whose culpability has not been substantiated through lawful evidence,” the court ruled.

Meanwhile, the HRCP hoped that Mr Wazir’s release would mark the end of a troubling cycle of arrests dating back to December 2020 and spanning four different jurisdictions.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2026