Ismail, father of Gulalai, granted bail

A Peshawar High Court (PHC) bench on Monday granted conditional bail to social activist Gulalai Ismail’s father Professor Mohammad Ismail who was arrested by the Federal Investi­gation Agency’s cyber crime wing last month. He faces charges of cyber terrorism and hate speech. The bench comprising Justice Qaiser Rasheed Khan directed the petitioner, Professor Ismail, to submit two sureties worth Rs.100,000 each, and directed him not to repeat the alleged offence after he was set free. It ordered that in case he was again found involved in such offences, the prosecution should seek cancellation of his bail. Professor Ismail was arrested on October 24 from outside the PHC where he had gone to attend proceedings of his petition filed for quashing of a case of terror financing filed against him, his spouse and Gulalai Ismail by the Counter Terrorism Department, Peshawar.
Earlier in September 2019, Peshawar High Court’s Bannu bench had accepted the bail pleas of PTM leaders Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar in the Kharqamar attack case. However, Justice Nasir Mehmood, who heard the bail applications of Dawar and Wazir in Bannu, asked the MNAs to report to police once a month. They were also asked to provide surety bonds worth Rs. 1 million each. “The bench has given us conditional bail,” said Abdul Latif Afridi, the lawyer representing the MNAs”, adding that “the Anti-Terrorism Law 21-D allows a judge to impose certain conditions on admission to bail”. The two MNAs, who are leaders of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), were initially charged in an FIR registered at the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) police station, Bannu, on May 26 after a clash between PTM members and Army personnel near the Kharqamar check post in North Waziristan.
The clash had resulted in the deaths of 13 persons and injuries to several others. Separately, they were charged in a case registered on June 7 at the CTD police station, Bannu, after an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded on a road in Doga Macha, North Waziristan, when an Army convoy was passing through the area. The blast had left four Army officials – a lieutenant colonel, a major, a captain and a lance havaldar – martyred. Ali Wazir had been taken into custody the day of the attack, while Mohsin Dawar surrendered himself to security forces a few days later. Those who have been watching the PTM leaders’ activities and their acts of inciting the people against the law enforcing agencies wanted to see them behind the bars, as one of the prominent PTM leaders was involved in taking bhatta from the truck owners at Angoor Adda.
It is true that the courts give verdicts or grant bails on the basis of the evidence produced by the petitioners and prosecution; and it means that prosecution had failed to prove its case. Pashtun Tahafuz Movement leader Gulalai Ismail was named in First Information Reports’ (FIR) in different parts of the country after videos airing comments against the state and its security institutions. Shortly after the news of rape and murder of Farishta, PTM leader Gulalai Ismail could clearly be seen spewing venom against the state and its institutions. Two FIRs were registered against her within 24 hours. Later it transpired that her father Professor Ismail was also aiding and abetting his daughter. There is a perception that PTM leaders want to create chaos, confusion and bloodshed to revitalize their narrative, which lost its strength after FATA’s merger with KP.