PESHAWAR: A local court on Saturday turned down the pre-arrest bail petition of additional assistant commissioner Aftab Ahmad in a lawyer intimidation and torture case over failure to show up before it.

Rejecting the plea, additional district and sessions judge Mohammad Faisal Khan observed that the name of the accused was repeatedly called till the rising of the court but neither him nor his counsel turned up in the hearing, so the court withdrew the interim pre-arrest bail granted to the accused on June 16.

He directed the relevant members of its staff to send a copy of the order to the police’s investigation officer for information.

Peshawar High Court Bar Association secretary-general Farooq Afridi and Barrister Amirullah Khan Chamkani appeared for complainant Ghufranullah Shah in the court and submitted their power of attorneys.

Neither AAC Aftab nor his counsel attended hearing

The court had earlier granted interim pre-arrest bail to the accused, Aftab Ahmad, on June 16 on the condition of furnishing two surety bonds of Rs90,000 each and also directed him to join the police investigation.

The FIR against the AAC was registered at Chamkani police station on June 4 on the order of the additional sessions judge, who had accepted the bail petition of lawyer Ghufranullah Shah under Section 22-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The FIR was registered against the AAC and two policemen named Ahmad Shah and Altaf under the Pakistan Penal Code’s Section 506 (criminal intimidation), Section 324 (attempt to commit intentional murder) and Section 34 (act done by several persons in furtherance of common intention).

The AAC was at the centre of a controversy between the lawyers and civil servants after advocate Ghufranullah was arrested at a filling station and an FIR was registered against him on his order on June 2.

The controversy had led to protests by both sides as the lawyers observed strike for 12 days and the civil servants went on a symbolic strike across the province by wearing black armbands. Both sides ended protests on June 14 claiming that their major demands were met by the government.

The lawyer was accused by the AAC of stopping him from performing his duty at a filling station on June 2.

In the FIR, the AAC insisted that he went to a filling station on the GT Road to look into the complaints about ‘hindrance to fuel supply to motorists’ and as he was busy with his official duty, Ghufranullah, who was also present there, began hurling threats at him and his police guards before attacking them and trying to snatch their weapons.

Similarly, another FIR was registered against some lawyers on the complaint of the district administration accusing lawyers of attacking the office of the deputy commissioner during a demonstration on June 4.

While ending their protest, the civil servants had claimed that the government had promised them the withdrawal of the case against the AAC and suspension of the practicing licences of the lawyers, who ‘attacked’ the office of Peshawar’s deputy commissioner.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2022