Ali Wazir gets bail after one-and-a-half years in jail

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday granted bail to South Waziristan MNA Mohammad Ali Wazir in a hate speech case.

Wazir, who supports the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), was booked by the Shah Latif Town police under the anti-terrorism law for delivering hate speeches against certain institutions of the state, including armed forces.

A counsel for the MNA, Salahuddin Gandapur, submitted that the mandatory sanction under the Section 196 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC)for the registration of an FIR under the sections 124-A and 153-A had not been obtained from the government before the registration of the case.

He submitted that the co-accused in the case against whom identical allegations had been levelled were on bail and no action had been taken against those not on bail such as PTM chief Manzoor Ahmed Pashteen and MNA Mohsin Dawar.

An additional prosecutor general opposed the bail application submitting that the requirement under the Section 196 of the CrPC was not necessary in the cases registered under the anti-terrorism law. The law officer, however, did not dispute that speeches were made mostly in Pashto language, the transcript of which with verbatim translations had not been procured by the prosecution till now.

A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro, after hearing the arguments, observed that the case was pending in court since 2018 and not a single witness had been examined by the trial court. The SHC observed that further incarceration of the applicant in such circumstances was not likely to add anything to the prosecution case. It observed that there was no likelihood of trial to culminate in near future and granted the applicant bail against furnishing a solvent surety in sum of Rs500,000.