ISLAMABAD, June 27: Seventeen Pakistanis held for months by authorities after being freed from US detention at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba were released on Monday, a government official said. Thirty-five Pakistanis were released from Guantanamo Bay in September but they were placed in detention as soon as they returned home for further investigation.

Authorities recently moved the 35 to their home provinces to speed up their release after newspapers said they were being held without charge at a jail in Rawalpindi.

Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, an adviser to the government of Punjab, said the 17 prisoners moved to that province had been freed from a prison in Lahore after relatives promised they would stay out of trouble.

“The relatives of these people have given an assurance that they would not indulge in any terrorist activity inside as well as outside the country,” Ashrafi told Reuters.

The fate of the other 18 who were transferred to other provinces was not immediately known.

“American soldiers have been committing desecration of the holy Koran at Guantanamo,” Hafiz Ehsan Saeed, 27, told AFP as he emerged from the central jail in Lahore.—Agencies