PESHAWAR: An anti-terrorism court here on Wednesday extended interim pre-arrest bail of three Pakistan Tehreek-iInsaf (PTI) leaders recently named as accused in the May 2023 ransacking and torching of the Radio Pakistan building in Peshawar.
Judge wali Mohammad Khan fixed Nov 11 for the next hearing in the case as two other accused, including dysfunctional chief minister Sohail Afridi and PTI social media activist Amir Khan Chamkani, didn’t show up.
Their counsel claimed that Mr Afridi’s whereabouts had not been known since he was taken into custody after the imposi-tion of emergency in the province on Oct 11.
He alleged that Chamkani had also been arrested or abducted by unidentified men in Peshawar on Nov 3.
On Oct 28, the court had issued arrest warrants for the five newly-included accused, including Sohail Afridi, former provincial ministers Taimoor Saleem Jhagra and Kamran Khan Bangash, PTI Peshawar president Irfan Saleem and social media activist Amir Chamkani.
Except for Afridi, the other four accused approached the court a few days ago and obtained interim pre-arrest bail.
While Mr Jhagra, Mr Bangash and Mr Saleem appeared before the court on Wednesday, their bail was extended until Nov 11.
Afridi has not been seen since the imposition of governor’s rule and emergency in KP on Oct 11.
His whereabouts remained unknown on the day governor’s rule was imposed, and a federalminister confirmed a day later that he and some of his cabinet members were in preventive custody.
Senior counsel Shabbir Hussain Gigyani, representing Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) in the ongoing trial of the Radio Pakistan attack case, also submitted his power of attorney to represent the PBC in the bail petitions of the three accused.
Investigating officer Khushal Khan told the court that he had already submitted supplementary charge sheets against all five accused.
When the court asked the lawyer for the three accused whether he wanted to argue their bail petitions, he replied in the negative and sought time to gothroughtherecords.
Advocate Ali Zaman, who appeared for Mr Afridi and Mr Chamkani, claimed that the latter had been taken into custody a day earlier in Peshawar, which was why he could not appear in the case.He contended that dysfunctional chief minister Afridi had been taken away from Chief Minister House in Peshawar after the imposition of emergency in the province on Oct 11 and that his whereabouts had remained unknown since then.
The lawyer said a petition had been filed in the Peshawar High Court seeking information about the cases in which Afridi had been charged following the May 9, 2023 protests.
He, however, said the case had not been mentioned in the details provided to the high court by the government.
The counsel said that while the chief minister remained missing, Afridi had simultaneously been charged in three May 9 cases, with his presence shown within the jurisdictions of three different police stations.
The court is currently trying 75 accused in the case, including some serving and former lawmakers.
The five accused in questionwere initially neither named in the FIR nor charged in the earlier charge sheet.
The charge sheet against them was submitted in light of findings by the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) and the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) regarding video clips purportedly showing the incident and the profile pictures of certain suspects, respectively.
Police investigating officer DSP Khushal Khan said in his report that in light of the PFSA and Nadra findings, Radio Pakistan Peshawar station director Tufail Ahmad had recorded a supplementary statement in which he had also nominated the five men as accused.
On an application filed by PBC lawyer Shabbir Gigyani, the courthad orderedtheforensie examination of the ‘relevant’ videos and facial recognition of the accused through Nadra and the PFSA on Dec 12, 2025.