PESHAWAR, Dec 4: A two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court on Thursday directed the NWFP government to make arrangements for deportation of six foreigners, including some Arabs.

The bench comprising Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Ijazul Hassan fixed Dec 9 for next hearing and directed the petitioner and the respondents to inform the court about developments concerning the issue.

A former MNA, Jawed Ibraheem Paracha, who has challenged the detention of 11 foreigners under the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), assured the bench that he would provide air tickets for the six detainees.

Senior advocate Qazi Muhammad Anwer appeared for the petitioner, Mr Paracha, and informed the court that the government had deported three of the detainees — Ali Raza of Iran, Abudaham Yousaf of Lebanon and Jabbar Mehdi of Iraq — recently.

He pointed out that two other detainees, Yousaf Bin Yousaf of Palestine and Said Raza of Iraq, had been shifted to Adiala prison and they were suffering from different ailments.

Mr Anwer stated that six of the detainees — Faiz Muhammad and Bashir of Palestine, Musa Muhammad and Tualah Yelghan of Tanzania, Havaldar Muhammad Kibriya of Bangladesh and Muhammad Umer Saeed of Somalia — had been languishing in Peshawar central prison.

He said the petitioner had arranged for air tickets of three of the deported foreigners and was willing to make arrangements for the six detainees in Peshawar. He added that these detainees had already been cleared by the intelligence agencies and were not required in any of the cases here.

The 11 detainees were arrested mostly in Khyber agency while crossing into Pakistan from Afghanistan on different dates in 2002 and 2003, and were charged by the political agent under section 40 FCR and section 14 of Foreigners Act.

The petitioners have prayed the Peshawar High Court to declare their detention order illegal and they be set at liberty to travel to a country of their choice.

The NWFP Advocate General, Jehanzeb Raheem, informed the bench that the provincial government had no objection over deportation of these detainees. He stated that the charges against them under the FCR had already been dropped and they were now only charged under the Foreigners Act.

Mr Raheem stated that the provincial government could not make arrangements for the tickets of the said six detainees and if the petitioner could provide the same they would make arrangements for their deportation.

He stated that two of the detainees, Mehdi and Yousaf Bin Yousaf, had been shifted to Adiala Prison and they were now out of the jurisdiction of the provincial government. The bench observed that they were shifted out of the jurisdiction of the Peshawar High Court while the case was in progress.