PESHAWAR, Jan 10: NWFP Advocate-General Qazi Rasheedul Haq informed the Peshawar High Court on Thursday that the petition challenging the detention of suspected Al-Qaeda men here is not maintainable and should be dismissed.

He contended that the petitioner had no right to file the instant petition.

A division bench of the high court comprising Justice Shahjehan Khan Yousafzai and Justice Abdur Rauf Laghmani took up for preliminary hearing the petition filed by former MNA Jawed Ibraheem Paracha. The bench, owing to lack of time, adjourned the petition till Jan 15 to settle whether the petition was maintainable or not.

The court had issued notice to the federal and provincial governments during the last hearing. Deputy Attorney-General Salahuddin and AG Qazi Rasheedul Haq appeared for the federal and provincial governments respectively, whereas advocates Mukhtar Ahmad Tarar and Muzamil Khattak represented the petitioner.

Mr Haq argued that the petitioner had no legal right to challenge the detention as the prisoners were not Pakistanis and they were not arrested from settled areas.

The petitioner’s counsel contended that petition was maintainable as the detainees had been kept in illegal detention and had not been produced before any court of law as per rule.

Kohat SHO Ahsanullah, who is also one of the respondents in the case, also appeared before the court. But, the court exempted the SHO from appearance in further hearings.

The petitioner has given names of 57 persons mostly belonging to Arab countries, stating that they were kept in detention in district prison Kohat in inhuman conditions.

He prayed to the court to issue directives for their production and release.