PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has declared illegal the detention of the father of former federal minister and PTI leader Murad Saeed under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance and ordered the release of Mohammad Saeedullah.

It, however, ordered the detainee to submit a Rs200,000 bond for good behaviour to the relevant deputy commissioner.

The order was issued by a bench consisting of Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Fazal Subhan during a hearing into the petition of Mr Saeedullah.

The petitioner was arrested on Aug 6 after Swat’s deputy commissioner issued orders for the former’s detention under Section 3 of the MPO claiming that Mr Saeedullah had “exploited freedom of speech and was involved in spreading hatred against government, defaming law- enforcement agencies and provoking people against the government.”

It declares nothing on record to prove allegations against detainee

The DC also claimed that the acts of the petitioner, including hate speeches and anti-state slogans, were meant to incite violence and promote anti-state sentiments and therefore, his activities threatened the peaceful atmosphere of Swat and were likely to create disturbance in the district.

He ordered the petitioner’s detention for a period of 30 days.

Advocate Alam Khan Adenzai appeared for the petitioner and contended that Swat’s DC had misused his authority under the MPO Ordinance.

He contended that the petitioner was an apolitical person and that his detention order had been issued on political grounds as his son, Murad Saeed, was a PTI leader and remained a federal minister.

He referred to different judgements of the high court in identical matters and said the court had already declared illegal the present practice of detaining leaders and activists of PTI by different deputy commissioners under the MPO Ordinance.

The bench observed that from the impugned order, it was clear that no specific date, time and place had been mentioned for the alleged involvement of the petitioner in delivering hateful speeches against the government functionaries.

It added that on Aug 9, the additional advocate general was directed to come up with all relevant records but nothing had been produced to support the allegations levelled in the impugned order.

The bench declared that nothing was available on record to connect the petitioner with allegations levelled against him and hence, his detention without any solid proof merely on verbal allegations was not justified in the law and the impugned order was liable to be set at naught.

“It is the basic requirement of law that no order, particularly, a penal action can be taken in vacuum against a person without any cogent proof. There is no jurisdiction to detain a peaceful citizen without any evidence and his liberty cannot be curtailed without any proof of his guilt in black and white,” it ruled.

Our correspondent from Mardan adds: Former MPAs and PTI leaders Zahir Shah Toru and Amir Farzand Khan were granted interim pre-arrest bails by the local courts in two separate cases.

An anti-terrorism court granted an interim bail to Zahir Shah Toru, who is also the provincial vice-president of the PTI, in a case related to May 9 violent protests in Mardan.

An additional sessions judge granted interim bail to the two PTI leaders in a case registered against them by the anti-corruption establishment on May 10 for committing illegalities in appointments to the fisheries department in Mardan.

Both petitioners were directed to join the investigation in the two cases.

The PTI legal team led by Riaz Khan Paindakhel argued in both courts on behalf of the former lawmakers.

The counsel told ATC judge Khalid Khan that officials of the City Police Station had booked several PTI leaders and activists under different provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code, Anti-Terrorism Act and MPO Ordinance following the countrywide protests on May 9 against the arrest of former prime minister and PTI chairman Imran Khan.

They said the petitioner was not present on that occasion.

The court fixed Sept 9 for next hearing asking police not to arrest the petitioner until then.

Similarly, additional sessions judge Asim Riaz granted an interim bail to Zahir Shah and Amir Farzand until Aug 29.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2023