RAWALPINDI, May 19: The Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court on Wednesday sought parawise comments from the interior and defence secretaries on a case related to detention of six army officers, suspected of having links with Al Qaeda.

A single judge bench comprising Justice Tanveer Bashir Ansari asked the secretaries to submit their comments within 15 days. The court issued the notices after the director general, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) informed the court that the agency had neither detained the army officers, nor were the six wanted by the agency in any case, including their links with any terrorist networks.

The families of Lt Col Abdul Ghafar, Col Khalid Mehmood, Capt Dr Usman Zafar and Majors, Attaullah, Adil Qadoos and Rohail Faraz had filed a writ petition in the court through their petitioner, Mohammad Ikram Chaudhry.

In their petition, the families had contended that the six officers had been picked up by intelligence agencies, some of them from their offices, and were not being allowed to see their families or talk to them. Some of the officers were picked up about 25 months ago, the petitioner told the court, and sought their immediate recovery.