QUETTA Aug 18: The Balochistan High Court on Wednesday directed the federal government to make a thorough probe into complaints regarding ‘illegal’ arrests of citizens from various parts of the province by federal agencies.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed and Justice Nadir Khan, while hearing a writ petition against alleged arrest of Agha Syed Faisal Shah by a federal agency, also asked federal secretaries of interior and defence to submit their respective reports in compliance of the court order on or before September 5 when the matter would be taken up for further proceedings.

The standing counsel for the federation submitted that neither any of the federal agencies, including intelligence agencies, had ever arrested or detained Faisal Shah nor were they aware of his whereabouts.

The court, however, observed that a good number of petitions had either been disposed of or were pending before the court in which allegations had been levelled against federal intelligence agencies that they picked up a citizen and thereafter nothing was heard about him.

The court directed the standing counsel and the advocate general Balochistan to forward a list of all such cases, either disposed of or still pending, along with copies of all orders passed from time to time in these cases, to the federal secretaries of interior and defence.

Kamran Murtaza advocate, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, submitted that though no direct evidence was available in support of the allegations that citizen were being picked up by agencies, yet the incidents were known to all and had frequently been reported in newspapers.