K-P CM's aide on security watch list

ISLAMABAD: A special assistant to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak has been discharging his official duties even though his name is on a security watch-list, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The K-P government and Bannu DPO Qasim Ali Khan have confirmed that Malik Shah Muhammad Khan Wazir, who was elected to the provincial assembly from PK-72 (Bannu-III) on a PTI ticket, has been on the Fourth Schedule since 2011.

The Fourth Schedule comprises elements found or suspected to be involved in anti-state activities, delivering hate speeches and/or activists of religious outfits not yet banned but related with militancy in any way.

Wazir was named in an FIR for a 2009 blast in Bakkakhel, Bannu. Subsequently, his name was included in the Fourth Schedule to keep tabs on his movement.

“We place someone’s name on the Fourth Schedule if police want to bind him,” DPO Qasim told The Express Tribune. “A Fourth Scheduler is required to regularly inform police about his whereabouts.”

Under different sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), the federal or provincial governments can place any person on the Fourth Schedule for observation purposes if they receive information that they are an activist, office-bearer or an associate of any organisation which is suspected of being involved in terrorism or sectarianism.

District Intelligence Committees and Divisional Intelligence Committees comprising officials, intelligence and law enforcement agencies can revise this list based on case development. Alternatively, any Fourth Scheduler has the right to appeal against being included in the list.

Adviser to K-P CM on Information Mushtaq Ghani , who was initially clueless about the case, later confirmed to The Express Tribune that Wazir’s name was still on the Fourth Schedule.

“In 2009, there was a bomb attack on Maulana Abdul Hakeem, a prominent personality of Bannu.

His legal heirs nominated several people in the FIR, and his [Wazir’s] name was also included,” Ghani said.

“The case was registered against the whole tribe …and his [Wazir’s] name was also included along with others from his tribe,” he explained, adding that the FIR was registered when the Awami National Party (ANP) was in power.

The information adviser added that the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) has since strongly recommended scrapping Wazir’s name off the list.

“I think Wazir himself did not take interest in having his name removed from the Fourth Schedule, otherwise if he had pursued the case his name should have been removed from the list,” Ghani maintained, hoping that Wazir’s name would be removed from the list soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 6^th, 2016.