PHC issues release order of Sufi Mohammad

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday issued the release order of Maulana Sufi Muhammad, chief of the proscribed Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM), on bail in sedition cases after passing more than seven years in prison.

A single bench headed by Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth issued the release order of the TNSM chief, who is father-in-law of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Swat head Maulana Fazlullah, on statutory and medical grounds in the cases against him.

However, Maulana Sufi Muhammad had been indicted in the cases running in the district court at Mingora, Swat district, for treason over his speech against democracy and the state at the Grassy Ground in Swat in 2009. In the speech, he had termed democracy and the then government as un-Islamic and unconstitutional.

The high court in its brief order asked the TNSM chief to secure his release by furnishing two bail bonds worth Rs700,000 each. He is currently imprisoned in the Peshawar Central Jail. Arguing the bail application filed by Fazlullah Farooqi, son of Maulana Sufi Muhammad before the bench, the counsel Fida Gul submitted that this time the petitioner was seeking bail on medical and statutory ground.

“The prosecution has failed to produce witnesses in more than seven years against Sufi Muhammad in the courts,” the lawyer argued, adding that he is an aged person of 93 years and had developed various diseases in the prison.

As per the medical report, he stated, doctors of the prison’s hospital had stated that treatment of Maulana Sufi Muhammad is not possible in the prison. The lawyer said that he is almost in an unconscious condition on his bed.

About the cases, he said Sufi Muhammad is currently facing treason charges and for an attack on a police party in two cases lodged at Kabal Police Station on the same day on July 30, 2009.

The Anti-Terrorism Court had transferred the two much-publicised cases to the regular courts in Swat. In one case, he was accused of delivering a speech at Grassy Ground, Mingora on April 19, 2009. In that speech, he had termed the Constitution un-Islamic and demanded enforcement of Shariah. An FIR in this case was registered after a delay of three months in July 2009 under different sections of the Pakistan Penal Code.

He said that the Anti-Terrorism Court had already acquitted him of terrorism charges in 10 cases filed against him in 1994 and 1995. Opposing the bail, Additional Advocate General Rabnawaz submitted that delay in the cases was caused due to Sufi Muhammad’s application for acquittal in cases involving terrorism charges. He opposed bail to him on statutory and medical ground.

Fida Gul, counsel for Sufi Muhammad, told The News that release of the TNSM chief from Peshawar Central Prison is expected today after getting the order and submission of bail bonds.

Maulana Sufi Muhammad rose to prominence in 1994 by leading a week-long protest sit-in of hundreds of his supporters at the Malakand Pass. The demonstrators were demanding the enforcement of Shariah law in Malakand division and were averse to any move by the government to introduce the judicial system in place in the rest of the country.

However, successive governments failed to put Maulana Sufi Muhammad on trial and adopt a standard policy on how to deal with him. Sufi Muhammad was first arrested in Kurram Agency in December 2001 on his return to Pakistan from Afghanistan where he had gone while heading around 10,000 poorly armed persons to fight on the side of the Afghan Taliban against the invading US forces.

At that time he was tried along with some 30 of his supporters by the political agent of Kurram Agency and was sentenced under several sections of the PPC and the Frontier Crimes Regulation.

The cases against Sufi Muhammad were mostly registered over two decades ago when TNSM activists occupied several government installations in Swat and other areas in 1994 and attacked different police stations. In one case, he was charged with staging a rally in Timergara in Lower Dir district in 2001 and dubbing the then military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf an agent of the US.

So far the ATC has acquitted him in 10 cases. The other two cases were referred to a regular court as it was observed that the charges against Sufi Muhammad and some other accused did not fall under the schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), 1997.

Sufi Muhammad was re-arrested in July 2009 from Sethi Town in Peshawar after the launch of the final stage of the military operation in Malakand division following the failure of the peace deal with the provincial government in 2008.