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PHC grants bail to `faith healer` accused of blackmailing woman

Bureau Report 2022-07-17
PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court bench has granted bail to a selfproclaimed faith healer charged with blackmailing a woman in Upper Dir district.

Justice Mohammad Ijaz Khan of a single-member bench accepted the petition of suspect Mohammad Wali alias Kakay on condition of furnishing two surety bonds of Rs200,000 each.

The bench ruled that the offences faced by the petitioner didn`t fall within the prohibitory clause of Section 497 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, so he was entitled to the concession of bail.

The petitioner was named in anFIR registered at the Gandigar police station of Upper Dir district on June 11, 2022, under the Pakistan Penal Code`s sections 380 (house robbery), 420 (cheating) and 500(defamation).

The woman complained to police that she had washed her clothes and burqa and spread them in the courtyard to dry up but didn`t find them next morning.

She said the petitioner later met her mother and claimed that he was a f aith healer and knew who had taken away her daughter`s clothes.

The complainant alleged that her mother paid the `faith healer` Rs3,000 to find for the missing clothes.

She said the `faith healer` later told her mother that he had learned with the help of his supernatural powers that her daughter was unhappy with her husband, so she should divorce him to solemnise nikkah with him.

The complainant said her mothercensured the self-proclaimed faith healer and insisted her daughter had a happy matrimonial life, so the latter began blackmailing them.

She claimed that some elders of the area requested the man to return clothes to her but he declined.

The police later took him into custody and seized the stolen clothes on his pointation.

The bench observed that in the given circumstances the petitioner had made out a case for the grant of bail.

Earlier, the bail petition of the `f aith healer` was turned down by an additional district and sessions judge in Upper Dir district observing that that he had allegedly stolen clothes of the complainant, which was a despicable of fence in the conservative society.