PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has rejected the bail plea of two suspected terrorists charged with attacking the Frontier Corps vehicles with an improvised explosive device (IED) in Bajaur tribal district in February this year, which had left 11 personnel injured.

Justice Mohammad Ijaz Khan of a single-member bench observed that on the tentative assessment of the available records, the accused, including Mohammad Saeed and Ihsanullah, were prima facie connected with the commission of the offence.

The bench observed that the offence also fell within the prohibitory clause of Section 497 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and as such, they being accused of exceptional offence were not entitled to the concession of bail.

It added that the records revealed that the petitioners were directly charged with committing the very heinous offence of hatching a conspiracy against the motherland.

They were named in Bajaur FC blast case

“Such accused are not ordinary persons and they need to be dealt with iron hands, as an act of terrorism not only shakes the very foundation of the state by itself but also brings a bad name to the country in the world,” it observed.

The bench further observed that all injured prosecution witnesses had recorded their statements supporting the case of the prosecution, while over and above, the joint investigation team report spoke of the involvement of the accused in the terrorist attack.

It added that the allegations mentioned in the FIR did find support from the medico-legal reports of the injured personnel of the Frontier Corps (Bajaur Scouts) personnel.

The FIR of the occurrence was registered at the CTD police station, Malakand region, by sub-inspector Mohammad Khan on Feb 3, 2022, under sections 324, 353, 427, 120-B, 148 and 149 of the Pakistan Penal Code, Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, and sections 3 and 4 of the Explosive Substance Act.

The complainant claimed that personnel of Bajaur scouts in official vehicles had gone for a search operation to Airab area in Bajaur tribal district and while returning back to their camp an IED exploded hitting one of the vehicles, which caused injuries to 11 of them.

He added that the conspiracy to kill personnel of security forces and inflict damage to public property was hatched by Afghanistan-based terrorists, including Qari Yahya, Maulvi Ismael, Gul Bahadur and three others.

The complainant said that four terrorists, including Ali Rehman, Shoaib, Mohammad Saeed and Ihsanullah, were assigned the task to carry out the terrorist attack.

The lawyer for petitioners contended that his clients were falsely implicated in the case.

He added that his clients had no record of any criminal activity and that there was no independent witness to the IED blast.

The counsel said that the petitioners had voluntarily surrendered to the security forces after they learned about them being named in the FIR.

Assistant advocate general Sohail Sultan told the court that there were enough evidence on record to connect the petitioners with the commission of the offence.

Published in Dawn,May 7th, 2022