May 25, 2006	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 26, 1427

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PESHAWAR, May 24: Additional district and sessions judge Ahtesham Ali on Wednesday sought a reply from the provincial home department on an application filed by a welfare organisation seeking permission to extend health and other facilities to 10 detained foreigners.

The court fixed May 27 for next hearing, asking the home department if it had any objection on the application.

The application was filed by the Al-Khidmat Foundation, requesting the court to order shifting of the 10 foreigners, two Tajik boys and eight members of an Egyptian family, from the Peshawar prison to its centre. It requested that the foreigners, facing trial under the Foreigners Act, should be allowed to stay in the centre till their deportation orders were issued.

The applicant said two of the Egyptians had been suffering from ophthalmological problems and one had been suffering from minor paralyses and other diseases.

The applicant’s counsel said proper medical treatment could not be provided to the foreigners in the prison.

The bail petitions of the 10 people were dismissed by a judicial magistrate on April 28.

An intelligence agency had handed over the foreigners to the Federal Investigation Agency on April 18 and the FIA had registered FIRs against them under section 14 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, for staying illegally in Pakistan.

The detainees were produced in the court for the first time on April 20 and they are now in the Peshawar Central Prison on orders of the judicial magistrate.

The Egyptians are Engineer Farooq bin Saad, his sons Abdur Rehman, Obaid and Abdullah, wife Fatima, and daughters, Aasia, Barah and Khadija.

The two Tajik boys, Said Akber alias Hussain, 14, and Khalid Maroof, 16, were arrested by the Pakistan Army in 2004 in South Waziristan. Their arrest was disclosed by army authorities at a press briefing and they were produced before the media on Nov 25. Khalid was caught by a tribal ‘lashkar’ after a toy-bomb killed four local students. Later on, he was handed over to the military authorities. Hussain was arrested at Speen Kamar in the Makeen area of South Waziristan.

The Egyptian family members were arrested in the Dwa Sarae village in the Charssada district on May 23, 2005.

Quoting unnamed agency officials, some local newspapers had reported that the Egyptians had links with militant organisations.