December 15, 2006	Friday	Ziqa'ad 23, 1427

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PESHAWAR, Dec 14: Family members of four missing men from the Swat district on Thursday moved the Peshawar High Court, accusing two intelligence agencies of keeping their loved-ones in illegal confinement.

In two separate writ petitions filed in the court, the family members said the four men had been missing for one month and they had not been produced in any court.

One of the petitions was filed by Safdar Ali of Shagai village. In his petition, Mr Safdar said his 70-year-old brother Mian Syed Laiq, son Ziaud Din and nephew Syed Mohammad Shah had been picked up by the Swat police and officials of the Inter Services Intelligence and the Intelligence Bureau on Nov 11. He said they had been taken to some undisclosed place.

In the second petition, Mian Haleem Shah alleged that on Nov 24, the DSP of Matta asked his brother Mohammad Yousuf to come to his office.

He said his brother visited the DSP’s office along with Safdar Ali. He alleged that the DSP detained his brother and directed Safdar Ali to leave the office. He said the detainee was then shifted to some unknown place and now, he claimed, he was in the custody of the ISI and the IB.

The two petitioners said the arrests were unconstitutional and illegal. They stated that the detainees had been kept incommunicado and the family members had not been told about their whereabouts.