MUZAFFARABAD: Agreeing with the contentions of the prosecution, an anti-terrorism court in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Tuesday rejected the bail plea of detained poet Ahmed Farhad Shah, holding that the legal points advanced by his counsel did not apply to the case in hand.

Mr Shah, who had gone missing from his Islamabad residence on May 15, had surprisingly “re-surfaced” in Gujjar Kohala, a village near the AJK border with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on May 29 when the Islamabad High Court was hearing a petition seeking his recovery.

Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, the senior puisne judge of the IHC, had fra­med 12 questions mostly related to the functions and obligations of spy agencies i.e. Inter-Serv­ices Intelligence, Military Intelli­gence and the Intelligence Bureau.

The court was informed by AGP Man­soor Usman Awan that Mr Shah had been arrested under Sec­tion 186 of the Azad Penal Code (APC) — the AJK version of Pakis­tan Penal Code — and was kept at the Dhirkot police station of Bagh district.

Prosecution insists Ahmed Farhad had shared ‘provocative material’ during JAAC protests

Later, the same afternoon, Mr Shah was handed over to Saddar police station in Muzaffarabad, where he was booked under nine sections of APC and one each section of Telegraph Act and Anti-Terrorism Act according to a statement given to his family by Dhirkot police.

Initially, the Saddar police station’s FIR (205/24) of May 13 was kept ‘secret’ by police, but later it emerged that it was registered against 150-200 unidentified “miscreants” for “inciting violence, blocking roads and attacking the convoy of paramilitary force Rangers at different spots during its journey from Bararkot to Muzaffarabad on May 13 at the behest of Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC)”.

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In his arguments on Mr Shah’s bail petition, his counsel Karam Dad Khan had agitated the very point, maintaining that his client was not even a nominated accused in the FIR in question and that he had been implicated in the case with mala fide intentions.

The counsel also questioned how his cli­­­ent could instigate a mob in Mu­­zaf­far­abad to commit any unlawful act when he was physically present in Islamabad, and there was no internet service in any part of AJK during the protests.

In his arguments, additional adv­o­cate general Chaudhry Moham­mad Manzoor, who was appointed by the government as special prosecutor, maintained that Mr Shah was named in the FIR after he was traced through social media on May 14 during the process of investigations.

The accused had publicised “factually wrong, provocative and hate-filled material” on his Facebook ID during the days of protests in general and on May 13 in particular, which incited hatred against the law-enforcement institutions, following which two more sections were added to the FIR, the special prosecutor contended, among other things.

He opposed the grant of bail, paritularly when the prosecution had to make recovery of his mobile phone etc.

Reproducing the contents of the FIR in his four-page judgement, special judge Mahmood Farooq held that though the petitioner was not a nominated accused in the FIR, from the screenshots of the content posted on his Facebook ID it became clear that those posts were uploaded during the JAAC agitation movement when violent incidents caused physical and material losses.

“A perusal of the advertised material reveals that the content was not only hateful and inflammatory but also exaggerated the loss of lives during the protests, escalating provocation and hatred between the public and the law-enforcement agencies,” the judge said.

“Prima facie, the petitioner/accused appears to be connected with the offences entered initially and added afterwards in the FIR,” he added.

The judge also noted that the offences under section 6 of Anti-Terrorism Act and Section 489-O of APC were not only non-bailable, but also fell under the prohibited clause of Section 497 of Criminal Procedure Code.

“Since according to the record, the recovery of the devices related to the petitioner/accused (mobile/laptop) through which provocative content was allegedly advertised has not been made, in such a situation in my opinion the petitioner/accused does not appear to be deserving the favour of bail for the time being (sic),” he declared.

“Due to the variation of events the legal points advanced by Mr Shah’s counsel do not apply to this case, as each criminal case has its own distinct conditions, therefore the bail application of the petitioner/accused is rejected.”

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2024