PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday warned that if any intelligence agency expressed ignorance about any missing person, who was later found to be in their custody, then a case of illegal detention and kidnapping would be registered against its sector commander and other officials concerned.

In the order, a bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Qaiser Rasheed observed that if it was proved in future that intelligence agencies were involved in the illegal detention and kidnapping of the people, cases would be registered under sections 365 and 342 of Pakistan Penal Code against the relevant intelligence officials, including sector commanders working in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

It added that it would direct general Headquarters to stop promotions of such officials and proceed against them under Army Act for detaining civilians without any sanction of law.

During the hearing into around 115 petitions of habeas corpus, the bench observed that ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), MI (Military Intelligence) and other intelligence agencies had long not been responding to the writ of the court in the cases probably because they were under the misconception of being above rule of the law and the Constitution.

It said intelligence agencies should clearly understand consequences of their negative attitude and conduct as they had been deliberately violating orders of the court.

The bench issued fresh notices to the defence and interior secretaries and the relevant officials of the intelligence agencies and other forces operating in the province, and Fata to update it on the position and location of the missing persons.

“Either they (illegally detained persons) should be freed or if ample evidence is available against them, they should be interned to the notified internment centres otherwise the order regarding registration of criminal cases will prevail,” it ruled.

The bench later fixed for Aug 21 the next hearing into the cases directing deputy attorney general Muzamil Khan to convey the order to the relevant officials.

When the hearing began, the relevant officials except DAG were not in attendance to the anger of the bench, which observed that the cases would be heard only after those officials showed up.

DAG Muzamil Khan said a few days ago, the court had heard over 200 other petitions in which the next hearing was fixed for July 23.

He said the officials might be under the wrong impression that they had to turn up on that date and were not aware of the fixation of these cases.

The bench observed that during previous hearing, it had fixed the present date and ordered that the officials appear and explain their positions.

Later, representative of Frontier Corps Major Farrukh and an official of the Intelligence Bureau informed the court that only four persons had been traced and two of them were freed, while the remaining were sent to internment centres.

Relatives of missing persons visited the high court in large numbers.

One of the petitions is filed by a woman, Shan Bibi, against detention of her two minor sons, Syed Nazeem and Ijaz.

She claimed that the two brothers were picked up by security forces from a school in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency.

The woman said in the same case, an agency education officer had informed the court in 2011 that the boys were taken away by security personnel.

She said the principal of the school had confirmed it but despite that, security forces denied their involvement in the case.

Another petition is filed by a woman, Amna Lateef, challenging the detention of husband Abdul Lateef and brother Abdul Malik.

She said security forces riding over two dozens vehicles had raided her village in Tank district on July 17 in 2009 and took away her husband and brother and that the two had been missing since.