Controversial footage blocked, PTA tells PHC

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Tuesday informed the Peshawar High Court (PHC) that a video footage related to the alleged misbehaviour of the army personnel with a high court judge in Bannu cantonment had been blocked from the social media and other websites.
A representative of the PTA, Jawad Akhtar, appeared in the court and informed that the links about the video footage had been blocked after the court order.
However, he informed the division bench, comprising Justice Irshad Qaiser and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan that some objectionable materials were still present on the websites, which were out of the PTA jurisdiction.
On the previous hearing, additional attorney general Syed Attique Shah had stated before the court that the defence secretary had responded to a contempt petition. He had stated that his ministry deplored the surfacing of the said video footage but claimed it had not released the footage.
The bench was hearing a contempt of court petition filed by the additional registrar of PHC’s Circuit Bench at Bannu against the relevant personnel deputed at Muslim Gate Checkpost, where the occurrence had taken place.
The bench also heard some other petitions filed by different lawyers’ organisations about functioning of military checkposts in Peshawar and Bannu.
The bench directed the PTA to submit proper and detailed reply about its action over blocking the video footage about the high court judge and other objectionable materials on websites.
The court again issued direction to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to submit detailed and proper reply in the case as the court was not satisfied from the present reply.
It also sought record of the meetings held among the security forces and other
relevant authorities about the military checkposts so that in future, lawyers and judges did not face any inconvenience at checkposts.