PESHAWAR, Sep 20: A woman kept in alleged illegal detention for more than three months by an intelligence agency has been released here. Family sources of the woman, Gul Hamdana, informed that she was given a drop near the Daewoo company bus-stand on last Saturday.

Three of her close relatives, including two sisters from Karachi suspected of plotting to carry out suicide bombings, are still alleged to be in custody of the agency.

The two sisters, Arifa Baloch and Saba Baloch, Arifa’s husband, Bilal Ahmad, and mother of Bilal, Gul Hamdana, were allegedly picked from Swat on June 4 and since then their whereabouts were not known.

Saba is having a suckling baby with her whereas Arifa is in an advanced stage of pregnancy.

Family sources privy to the release of Gul Hamdana told Dawn that they received a mysterious call asking them to visit the bus-stand and pick Gul Hamdana.

The lady is not sure where they had been kept, but stated that their captors treated them well. A family member quoted her as saying that a lady doctor visited them regularly for examining Arifa Baloch.

They were kept in a well-furnished room and a maid also used to visit them for small-time chores.

The source quoted Gul Hamdana as saying that their captors had promised her that the two sisters would also be released soon.

The woman was told not to disclose anything to anyone. She is not sure which intelligence agency the captors belonged.

She claimed that her son, Bilal, stated to be an activist of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, was not lodged with them and their captors used to bring him for meeting them after a week or so.

The law enforcing and intelligence agencies had launched a hunt for the two sisters last year after their maternal-uncle, Gul Hassan, an activist of the defunct Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, had claimed that he had trained his nieces for carrying out suicide bombings.

Gul Hassan was arrested in connection with the bombings of Imambargah Ali Raza in Karachi in which 45 persons had been killed, and was sentenced by an anti-terrorism court to death on 45 counts.

On Aug 22, the Peshawar High Court had disposed of a writ petition filed by Hameed Khan, father of Bilal, challenging the detention of the four detainees, as the federal interior ministry had categorically denied their arrest.

The court had observed that as the intelligence agencies were supervised by the ministry of defence, therefore, the petitioner could file a fresh petition for making the ministry respondent in the case.

Father of the two sisters, Sher Muhammad Baloch, who is a bank officer, had also appeared before the court and stated that his daughters were kidnapped last year from Karachi and he had also lodged a complaint at the police station concerned in Lyari on June 30, 2004.

Mr Baloch had stated that he did not know the petitioner Hameed Khan and was also not aware what happened to his daughters after they disappeared from Karachi last year.

He stated that his brother-in-law Gul Hassan was not on good terms with him as he had declined to help him during his detention. He claimed that on June 29, 2004, Gul Hassan’s wife took his daughters away on the pretext of taking them to their grandmother’s house and since then his daughters had been missing.