PESHAWAR, July 26: The case of two sisters suspected of plotting suicide attacks took a new twist on Tuesday when their father appeared before the Peshawar High Court and stated that the girls were innocent and had been kidnapped from Karachi last year.

Mr Sher Mohammad Baloch, who came to the court after he knew through news reports about the arrest of the two sisters from Swat district by an intelligence agency, stated that he had registered a complaint about the disappearance of the girls at the police station in Lyari on June 30, 2004.

The bench comprising Justice Qaim Jan Khan and Justice Saleem Khan was hearing a writ petition filed by one Hameed Khan, claiming to be father-in-law of one of the sisters, Arifa Baloch.

The bench put on notice the deputy attorney-general of Pakistan and fixed Aug 2 for next hearing.

The petitioner has challenged detention of four people — Ms Gul Hamdana, wife of the petitioner, Bilal Khan, son of the petitioner, Arifa Baloch, wife of Bilal, and Saba Baloch, sister of Arifa who is married to Asif. Ms Saba Baloch is with her newly born baby boy in detention.

The sisters and their two other relatives were allegedly picked by officials of an intelligence agency in the first week of June from Swat district and the news of their arrest appeared in newspapers on June 10.

The government had claimed that the sisters belonged to Karachi and were given training of suicide bombing by their maternal uncle Gul Hassan, who was affiliated to the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi organization.

Mr Sher Mohammad Baloch on Tuesday filed an application before the court through advocate Shahnawaz Khan, requesting the court to include him as a party in the petition.

He stated that he did not know the petitioner Hameedullah and was not sure what happened to his daughters after they disappeared last year.

He requested the court not to entertain the plea of the petitioner as he was not their wali and only he (Mr Baloch) was legally empowered to challenge their detention.

Mr Baloch requested the court to allow him and his wife to meet their daughters to ascertain facts behind their kidnapping and their so-called marriages. He added that since their arrest their whereabouts had not been known and they had been moving from pillar to post in search of their daughters.

The deputy advocate-general, Mohammad Ayaz Khan, expressed ignorance about the arrest of the sisters by the provincial government.

He stated that the home department had no knowledge from where they were arrested and where they had now been kept.

The high court expressed annoyance over how could the government was not aware about their detention when they were picked up from a settled area.

The petitioner’s counsel, Khursheed Ahmad Shahan, contended that their continuous detention was illegal and unconstitutional. He argued that since their arrest the four detainees had not been produced before any court of law.

Later on, Mr Sher Mohammad Baloch told Dawn that his brother- in-law Gul Hassan was a member of a defunct organisation and was awarded death sentence on 45 counts in connection with the bombing of Imambargah Ali Raza in Karachi.

“Gul Hassan was not in good terms with me as I had declined to help him and arrange a counsel for him during his detention,” he said, adding, “on June 29, 2004, Gul Hassan’s wife took my two daughters on pretext of taking them to their grandmother’s house.”

He said that the girls did not return back following which I lodged a complaint at the police station the next day. “Both of my daughters were very brilliant students and they had also performed Haj twice,” Mr Baloch said.

He added that he would never believe that his daughters were planning suicide bombings as they could never think of killing innocent people.

Mr Baloch said that although his daughters observed complete pardah but that did not mean that they belonged to any militant organisation. “Since their disappearance I never heard about them and last month I came to know about their arrest from Swat through news reports. I also came to know about their so-called marriages,” he added.