D I KHAN: A religious scholar from Nowshera district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) has been arrested for threatening the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai with a suicide attack for her recent comments on marriage.
According to details, the cleric, Mufti Sardar Ali Haqqani, was arrested after an FIR was registered against him under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Complainant SHO Wasim Sajjad stated that Mufti Sardar delivered a speech at Speen Jumat, Wahid Ghari in Peshawar.
He said that the video of the speech was widely circulated on social media in which he could be seen standing armed on the stage and instigating people to take the law into their own hands and carry out a suicide attack on Malala Yousafzai.
“The cleric could be heard saying that he would carry out a suicide attack on Malala when she visits Pakistan. This highly enraged people,” read the FIR. Haqqani was booked under 16 MPO and 7ATA.
Police officials said that the cleric earlier probably escaped to his hometown Nowshera to avoid the arrest when the video went viral and was widely condemned. The suspect had also previously mocked COVID-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) in another video after which he was arrested by Nowshera police.
In an interview with Vogue, when asked about marriage, Malala had said: “I still don’t understand why people have to get married. If you want to have a person in your life, why do you have to sign marriage papers, why can’t it just be a partnership?”
