PESHAWAR, Feb 26: The Peshawar High Court on Monday granted bail to a naib-qasid of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) who was charged with throwing explosives near the Chief Minister Secretariat.

The Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court, Justice Tariq Pervez Khan, accepted the bail petition of Muhammad Tufail on the condition he furnished two sureties of Rs100,000 each.

The bail applications of the accused were earlier rejected by the judicial magistrate and additional district and sessions judge.

The chief justice observed that there was no evidence to prove that the dropping of the explosives was a conspiracy or the accused wanted to explode the same.

The accused was arrested on Dec 5 when he dropped a packet near the Chief Minister Secretariat. The police had recovered a stick of explosives from the packet and an FIR was registered against him under the Explosive Substance Act and the Anti-Terrorism Act. However, the charges under the ATA were later dropped.

Advocate Fakhre Alam Jhagra appeared for the petitioner and contended that the charges under the ATA were dropped and he was only charged under the Explosive Substance Act. He argued that the petitioner had no intention of conducting any illegal act.

Mr Jhagra argued that the explosive stick recovered by the police was not carrying any fuse or detonator and it was not harmful. He added that the accused dropped the packet and was ignorant of its contents.

He said that if the petitioner had any ill intention he would have placed proper explosive devise there instead of a harmless explosive stick.

Deputy Advocate-General Sardar Ali Raza argued that the accused was directly charged in the case, and had been caught red-handed by the police while planting explosives near the secretariat. The chief justice inquired where in the case was it mentioned that he had been planting explosives.

Mr Raza stated that the placing of the explosives was a conspiracy. The bench inquired who had hatched the conspiracy. The chief justice observed that the explosive stick was not carrying any detonator or fuse.

He said the IB office was about 40 feet from the spot and if it was part of a conspiracy the man could have thrown the stick from the office instead of going to the spot.

HONOUR KILLING: The court also granted bail to a person charged with murdering his sister in a case of honour killing.

Justice Ijazul Hassan of the PHC ordered that the accused-petitioner, Azeemullah Khan, should be released after he furnished two sureties of Rs300,000 each.

Azeemullah, the brother of the victim, and Bashir Khan, the prime accused and former husband of Sadia, had been accused of murder in the FIR lodged with the police station concerned by Hazrat Ameen, the husband of Sadia.

The prosecution claimed that Azeemullah had facilitated the murder of his sister in Mardan district a few months ago.

The petitioner refuted the claim made by the prosecution and stated that the victim’s nikah was solemnised with Bashir Khan a few years ago, but Sadia left her residence and started living with Hazrat Ameen.

He stated that following a compromise, Bashir divorced Sadia and she married Hazrat Ameen about seven years ago. He added that on Dec 5 Sadia left her residence after an altercation with her husband and went to the residence of their grandfather.