' The petitioners were hauled up by the S.H.O., Police Station, Mathra on the ground that he had received secret information that the petitioners had gathered at Pajagi Road near Jabba Masjid, duly armed, for committing dacoit. Two unlicensed pistols (.30 bore), Eleven live rounds and a dagger were recovered from the possession of the three petitioners which were taken into possession by the S.H.O. And F.I.R. No,293, dated 25-6-1998 was registered under section 399/400/401, P.P.C. The petitioners were arrested and their police custody was obtained. They were thoroughly interrogated but none of them confessed his guilt.
2. After having failed to procure bail from the lower forums, the petitioners have now approached this Court for the redress of their grievance.
3. Mr. Shakeel Ahmad, Advocate learned counsel for the petitioners and Mr. Ejaz Muhammad, the learned Additional Advocate-General for the State present and heard. Record of the case perused.
4. The learned counsel for the petitioners submitted, at the very outset, that the petitioners are neither previous convicts nor were ever associated in any manner with any dacoit/theft in the past.
According to him the only offence which they could have committed was that two of them were found to have .30 bore pistols along with 5/6 live rounds whereas the third one had only a dagger.
The learned counsel further submitted that in this Province everybody is ordinarily armed and that at the most the petitioners could be proceeded against under section 13, Arms Ordinance and that too if they had no licenses to possess the pistols. He submitted that the registration of the present case against the petitioners showed the high-handedness of the police to which the police usually resort to now a days. According to him there was nothing on the file to suggest, even remotely, that they had gathered to commit dacoit. In fact, one of the petitioners belonged to that area and the other two had gone to see/meet him. Since they were found on the road side at odd hours, they were checked by the Police which resulted in an altercation between the parties.' The Police, thus, misusing its authority involved them in this case. The learned counsel contended that reasonable grounds, therefore, do not exist for believing that the petitioners are connected with the commission of offence charged with and that their case was that of further inquiry.
5. On the other hand, the learned Additional Advocate-General submitted that the petitioners were directly charged in the F.I.R. And that 2 pistols/one dagger were recovered from their possession and, therefore, they were prima facie connected with the commission of the offence charged with and, thus, not entitled to be enlarged on bail.
6. Without dilating upon the merits of the case at this stage and keeping in view the available record, I tend to agree with the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner and am of the view that reasonable grounds do not exist for believing that the petitioners are connected with the commission of the offence charged with and that they are accordingly entitled to be released on 18 bail.
7. Resultantly, the petitioners are admitted to bail. They shall be release-d forthwith, if not required in any other case, provided they furnish bail bonds in the sum of Rs,50,000 (Rs, fifty thousand) with two sureties each in the like amount to the satisfaction of the Additional Registrar (Judicial) of this Court.
8. The Additional Registrar (Judicial) shall see that the sureties are respectable persons and hail from the settled areas of District Peshawar and have sufficient property in their names. The property documents as well as the copies of the identity cards of the sureties shall be obtained by the Additional Registrar for record.