PESHAWAR, Aug 2: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday included the father of two sisters suspected of plotting suicide attacks as a party in a writ petition challenging their detention by an intelligence agency.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Qaim Jan Khan and Justice Saleem Khan accepted an application filed by Mr Sher Muhammad Baloch, the father of Arifa Baloch and Saba Baloch.

The bench directed the concerned high court’s office to set an early date for the next hearing as the writ petition was of “habeas corpus” nature.

Claiming that his daughters were innocent, Mr Sher Baloch said he had come to know about their arrest from news reports that appeared a year after their disappearance.

The writ petition was filed by Hameed Khan, the father-in-law of Arifa Baloch.

The petitioner challenged the detention of his wife, son, daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law’s sister— Gul Hamdana, Bilal Khan, Arifa Baloch, and Saba Baloch. Ms Saba, married to one Asif, has a newborn baby with her in detention.

Intelligence officials allegedly picked up Saba and Arifa along with her husband and mother-in-law on June 4 from Swat district.

National newspapers carried reports about their arrest on June 10. So far none of them has been produced before any court of law.

The government claims that the Karachi-born sisters were trained in carrying out suicide attacks by their maternal uncle Gul Hassan, an activist of the outlawed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi group.

Advocate Shahnawaz Khan who appeared on behalf of Mr Sher Baloch, said that his client was a necessary party in this petition as he was the girls’ father.

Mr Baloch also appeared in person and said that he should be made party in the writ petition as he was their father and did not know the petitioner, Hameed Khan.

The deputy attorney general for Pakistan, Mr Salahuddin Khan, the deputy advocate general, Mr Ayaz Khan, and the petitioner’s counsel Khursheed Ahmad Shahan did not oppose the application.

Mr Baloch requested the court to allow him and his wife to meet their daughters so as to ascertain the real facts behind their kidnapping and their so-called marriages.

Ever since the girls were arrested, their whereabouts were kept hidden, according to Mr Baloch.

He claimed that his brother-in-law Gul Hassan was an activist of a proscribed organisation and was convicted and sentenced to death on 45 counts in connection with the bombing of Imambargah Ali Raza in Karachi.

He said the wife of Gul Hassan had lured his daughters on the pretext of taking them to their grandmother’s house on June 29, 2004, and since then they had gone missing.