PESHAWAR, Dec 12: The Crime Investigation Department (CID) and the defence ministry on Tuesday expressed ignorance before the Peshawar High Court about the detention of a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, Abdur Raheem Muslim Dost.

A CID official informed a two-member bench that the department had neither arrested the man nor had it knowledge regarding his whereabouts.

Deputy Attorney-General Salahuddin Khan stated that he had contacted officials in the ministry of defence and they had no knowledge about detention of Mr Muslim Dost.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Tariq Pervez Khan and Justice Dost Mohammad Khan directed the petitioner, Sayed Mohammad, elder brother of Mr Muslim Dost, to provide further details about the detention of the man.

The fresh arrest of the former Guantanamo detainee, who is an Afghan scholar, had been challenged by his bother through a habeas corpus petition stating that his brother had been picked up by personnel of the CID and an intelligence agency on Sept 29 from Academy Town.

Mr Muslim Dost and his brother Badrzaman Badar were arrested by an intelligence agency and handed over to the United States a few years ago.

They were shifted to Guantanamo by the US authorities and released after a few years.

A few months ago, the scholar and his brother authored a book ‘Da Guantanamo Mate Zolanae’ -- The broken shackles of Guantanamo.

In the book, they had criticised the role of Pakistani intelligence agencies in war against terrorism and said they had been severely tortured in the custody of Pakistani and US authorities.

Vice-chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Kamran Arif, appeared for the petitioner and contended that the detainee had not been presented in any court, which, he said was illegal and unconstitutional.

At the outset of the proceedings, the chief justice observed that for the past 30 years people had been extending hospitality to the Afghans. He said that due to their presence the crime rate had been on the rise.

Mr Arif stated that during these years Pakistan was a collaborator in the Afghan war.

He contended that it did not matter whether the detainee was an Afghan or Pakistani and said that his objective was only that the rule of law should prevail.

The chief justice observed that appropriate orders had been issued in various cases of habeas corpus.

The bench asked an official of the CID, who had appeared on the court notice, where Mr Mulsim Dost had been detained. The official expressed ignorance about his whereabouts. He stated that he had been the SHO of the CID police station for the past six months and during his tenure no such arrest had been made.

The court directed Mr Arif to submit more details which could help identify in whose custody the detainee was and where he had been kept.

The respondents in the petition are: the federation through the defence division secretary, the state through the advocate-general and the NWFP police chief.