PESHAWAR, May 20: The interior ministry on Thursday expressed ignorance before a Peshawar High Court bench about alleged detention of four cousins by the Pakistan Army for 70 days.

Besides, the defence ministry sought time for filing comments in two identical habeas corpus petitions, saying it had not yet received a reply from the GHQ. The two-member bench comprising Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Tallat Qayyum Qureshi granted a week's time to the defence ministry and fixed May 27 for next hearing.

Sohail Rehman, Muhammad Farooq, Kashif Jamal and Muhammad Asif were picked up from their houses in Dera Ismail Khan on March 12 allegedly by the army personnel. The deputy attorney-general of Pakistan, Hamid Farooq Durrani, informed the bench that he had received a short reply from the deputy secretary, ministry of interior, which stated that no clue to the detainees was 'available'.

The petitioners' counsel, Abdul Lateef Afridi, said that the detainees had not been produced before any court of law and contended that the defence ministry had not been following the court orders regarding submission of its comments.

The NWFP government and police have already expressed ignorance about the detention. The petitions have been filed by an agriculture scientist, Dr Abdur Rehman, and his relative, advocate Muhammad Aslam Khan.

Dr Rehman, a former managing director of M/s Monsanto Pakistan Agri Tech, said that his son, Sohail Rehman, had spent more than three years in Toronto and was holding a permanent resident card issued by the Canadian government. He claimed that Sohail was picked up by some officials in civvies and army uniform from his residence at around 3am on March 12.

Mr Aslam Khan stated that his three nephews - Kashif Jamal, Muhammad Asif and Muhammad Farooq, who are also nephews of Dr Rehman - were taken into custody the same night and since then their whereabouts are unknown.