March 26, 2026
By Rehan Piracha
LAHORE
Former Member of the National Assembly and Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) leader Ali Wazir filed a constitutional petition before the Sindh High Court’s Sukkur Bench on Thursday (March 26, 2026), challenging a fresh terrorism FIR registered against him on the same night he was released from custody following a high court order.
The petition, bearing number 256/2026, was filed through his counsel Imdad Hyder Solangi under Article 199 of the Constitution. It seeks the quashment of FIR No. 93/2026 — registered at A-Section Police Station in Dadu — and requests the court to restrain police across Sindh from registering any further FIRs against him. A bench comprising Justice Amjid Bohio and Justice Ali Hyder Ada is scheduled to hear the matter on March 30.
A release that lasted just hours
Wazir’s release on March 16 had come after a protracted legal battle spanning nearly two years. His most recent incarceration had begun in August 2024, and despite being granted bail in his final active case — a cybercrime matter — on March 10, bureaucratic delays kept him behind bars for an additional week. The constitutional bench of the Sindh High Court, headed by Justices Arbab Ali Hakro and Riazat Ali Sehar, had ultimately ruled that holding Wazir without a pending trial or investigation violated Article 9 of the Constitution, declaring his detention “illegal, unlawful, and unconstitutional.”
He walked free from Sukkur Central Prison at around 5:30 to 6:00 pm that evening. By 9:30 pm, he was gone again.
According to the petition, Wazir had accompanied relatives and friends to the home of an acquaintance for an iftar dinner when a large contingent of police and plainclothes law enforcement officials arrived in five or six government and private vehicles. The petition states that the officers “forcibly entered the premises and apprehended all persons and illegally, unlawfully abducted the petitioner while inflicting severe torture.” Mobile phones were seized, and those present were warned that filing any application before a court would result in fabricated cases against Wazir and his family members. The incident was captured on video and circulated widely on social media.
The FIR and its contradictions
Hours after Wazir was taken away, ASI Nazar Ali Laghari of PS A-Section Dadu lodged FIR No. 93/2026 at 9:30 pm on March 16, invoking Sections 123-A, 124-A and 124-B of the Pakistan Penal Code alongside Sections 6 and 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. The FIR alleges that a group acting on Wazir’s instructions had blocked a road, carried PTM flags and weapons, chanted slogans against the state and the Pakistan Army, and opened fire on police before fleeing.
Wazir’s petition roundly rejects these claims. It argues that the timing alone exposes the FIR as a fabrication. “The petitioner hardly released on 16.03.2026 from the Central Prison Sukkur in the evening time — then how he can venture to commit the offence on his released day from prolonged detention?”
The petition further contends that registering the FIR in direct defiance of the high court’s earlier order constitutes “a further blatant illegal act committed by the official respondents in contravention of the order of the Honourable High Court of Sindh Circuit Court Hyderabad.”
A pattern of successive cases
The petition places the latest FIR within a broader pattern of what Wazir’s legal team has consistently described as judicially-manufactured detention. Since 2024, he has faced multiple terrorism and sedition charges across Sindh, along with at least three Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) detention orders spanning Punjab, Sindh, Islamabad, and Balochistan. His lawyers note that each time a court granted bail or struck down a detention order, a new one would follow from a different district administration.
The outcomes in his previous cases tell their own story. An Anti-Terrorism Court in Sukkur acquitted him in FIR No. 106/2024 in August 2025 and in FIR No. 18/2025 the following month. FIR No. 93/2025 was returned by an ATC in Naushehro Feroze with a finding that it lacked the element of terror, and was subsequently cancelled by a civil court, which directed the complainant “to be careful and not violate the settled principle of law.” FIR No. 35/2025, meanwhile, was referred to a cybercrime agency, whose inquiry officer ultimately concluded in a report dated March 3, 2026 that Wazir “did not commit the offence as provided by PECA Act 2005” — the finding that led directly to the high court ordering his release.
The petition characterises the new FIR as “based on identical and fabricated allegations” intended “solely to prolong his incarceration and suppress his political activities,” adding that such conduct “clearly demonstrates mala fide intent on the part of the respondents, aimed at compelling the petitioner to abandon his lawful political struggle.”
Health concerns
Compounding the legal crisis are serious concerns about Wazir’s health. He suffers from high blood pressure, diabetes, a chronic heart condition, and kidney disease, requiring continuous access to prescribed medication. His petition flags this explicitly, noting that denial of medical treatment poses “a serious threat to his life, attracting violation of Article 9 of the Constitution.”
His whereabouts remained unknown for two days following his re-arrest — a gap that drew an urgent response from human rights bodies. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) stated that plainclothes law enforcement personnel had “forcibly abducted” Wazir shortly after his release, warning that his unknown whereabouts raised “serious fears for his life and health.” His counsel Solangi wrote to the UN Human Rights Commissioner, warning that Wazir’s detention without access to proper medical treatment exposed him to “serious and imminent risk to his life.”
Wazir was eventually produced before an Anti-Terrorism Court in Naushehro Feroze on March 19, two days after his disappearance, following the filing of a habeas corpus petition before the District and Sessions Judge Sukkur and a missing persons petition before the Sindh High Court. The ATC ordered his transfer to district jail in Dadu on judicial remand for 14 days.
Restraint against future arrests in Sindh
The petition names eight respondents, including the Province of Sindh through its Home Secretary, the Inspector General of Police Sindh, the SSPs of Sukkur and Dadu districts, the Station House Officers of PS Abad Sukkur and PS A-Section Dadu, the investigating officer of the impugned FIR, and ASI Laghari as the complainant.
Beyond quashing the FIR, the petition asks the court to restrain the investigating officer from submitting a challan while the petition is pending, and to direct the Inspector General of Police to prevent subordinate officers from registering further FIRs against Wazir.