MNAs Ali Wazir, Mohsin Dawar granted bail in Kharqamar attack case

Published September 18, 2019
he 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. — Reuters/File
he 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. — Reuters/File

Peshawar High Court's Bannu bench on Wednesday accepted the bail pleas of lawmakers Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar in the Kharqamar attack case.

Justice Nasir Mehmood, who heard the bail applications of Dawar and Wazir in Bannu, asked the MNAs to report to police once a month.

They will be released after legal formalities are completed. The MNAs have been asked to provide surety bonds worth Rs1 million each.

"The bench has given us conditional bail," said Abdul Latif Afridi, the lawyer representing the MNAs, adding that the Anti-Terrorism Law 21-D allows a judge to impose certain conditions on admission to bail.

"The judge gave a verbal order; we are waiting for the written one," Afridi told Dawn.

The two MNAs, who are leaders of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), 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.

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