Dawar challenges expulsion from North Waziristan

PHC directs district administration to produce relevant record todayv

PESHAWAR: The district administration of North Waziristan on Wednesday was directed by a higher court to produce the record of the expulsion order issued against Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) leader) Mohsin Dawar today (Thursday).

A two-judge bench of the Peshawar High Court (PHC), comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Musarrat Hilali, issued these directives while hearing a writ petition filed by Dawar through senior lawyer Abdul Latif Afridi.

The court directed the Additional Advocate General Qaiser Ali Shah to make sure that the record is presented to the court on Thursday clearly state the reason behind the three-month ban imposed on Dawar, restraining him from entering North Waziristan.



On June 7, the district administration had banned Dawar from entering North Waziristan for three months, for allegedly instigating people through provocative speeches.

Afridi argued in the court that his client had submitted his nomination papers for NA-48 and this expulsion order is tantamount to stop him from exercising his fundamental right of participating in political activities under the law.



Challenging the power of the political administration to issue such order, the lawyer made it clear that that assistant political agent cannot pass such order after the merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the political administration has no more such authority to utilise section 5 of the MPO 1960 (West Pakistan Act) under which expulsion order was issued against Dawar.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2018.