03 January 2004	Saturday	10 Ziqa'ad 1424

PESHAWAR, Jan 2: An Afghan official who was picked up by a secret agency's officials on Dec 21 has been ordered to leave the country, sources said on Thursday.

They said Abdul Hanan, the transport director at the Afghan Building here, was handed over to a diplomat of the Afghan embassy in Islamabad on Thursday and ordered to the country immediately.

An Afghan consulate official, when contacted, refused to comment. Mr Hanan was the official in charge of the transport section at the Afghan Building, which houses various offices of the Afghan government.

He was picked up in Hayatabad township the officials of a secret agency and taken to an unknown place for interrogation. However, the police denied the arrest of the official.

Sources said the Afghan consulate had approached the foreign office and complained that unidentified persons picked up the official without fulfilling any legal requirements.

They said the government did not give any grounds for the arrest. They said the official did not have a diplomatic status and Islamabad did not declare him a persona non grata.