PESHAWAR, June 21: The detention of four people, including two sisters, accused of plotting suicide attacks, has been challenged in the Peshawar High Court. The writ petition was filed by Hameed Khan, father-in-law of one of the sisters, Arifa Baloch, on Tuesday, challenging detention of his wife Gul Hamdana, son Bilal Khan, Bilal’s wife Arifa and her sister Saba Baloch.

According to the petitioner, Arifa has a newly born baby boy with her.

He stated that the sisters were innocent and the allegations against them were baseless.

The two sisters and their two relatives were allegedly picked up by officials of an intelligence agency in the first week of June and the news of their arrest appeared in newspapers on June 10.

The government claimed that the sisters, hailing from Karachi, had been imparted training of suicide bombing by their maternal uncle Gul Hassan belonging to a banned organization, the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.

The petition is filed through advocate Khursheed Ahmad Shahan who argued that according to article 10 of the constitution, an arrested person had to be produced before a court within 24 hours of his/her arrest.

Hameed Khan, who belongs to the Badabher area near Peshawar, claimed that his family had gone to Swat as the two sisters had been pregnant. “Saba gave birth to a boy in Swat through caesarean section,” he added.

He added that few days after the operation, the sisters had been picked by the agencies and since then their whereabouts were not known.

The petitioner stated that the two sisters needed proper medical care which could not be provided during detention. He added that they had been searching for the four detainees but police and officials concerned had been expressing ignorance about them.

He requested the court to issue orders for production of the four detainees in the court, to declare their arrests illegal and unconstitutional and set them at liberty.