PESHAWAR, Jan 9: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday directed the administration of the Orakzai Agency to produce two blind persons and an 80-year-old man detained under the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR).

A two-member bench comprising Justice Tariq Pervez Khan and Justice Qaim Jan Khan directed the assistant political agent (APA) of Upper Orakzai Agency to produce the three detainees on Jan 25.

The administration had arrested 11 members of the same family after an incident during which two women teachers and two children were killed in the agency in August last. The administration claimed that sniffer dogs had stopped in a street in front of their residence.

The court turned down the preliminary objection raised by the deputy attorney general, Salahuddin Khan, that under Article 247 of the Constitution the high court had no jurisdiction to entertain the issue.

The chief justice observed that they could not let innocent blind and elderly people rotting in prisons merely on the grounds that the court had no jurisdiction. He observed that the detainees had been imprisoned at the Kohat prison which was in the settled area.

The bench was hearing a writ petition filed by Mohammad Ayub, a relative of the detainees.

The government in its comments stated that the detainees were involved in the killing of four people and it claimed that sniffer dogs were used which had traced out the residence of the detainee.

The petitioner’s counsel Mian Muhibullah Kakakhel argued that it was inhuman that innocent blind persons and an elder had been imprisoned for no crime committed by them. He added that the blind persons, Fazal Jamil and Gul Jamil, and the old man, Ghaffar Khan, were arrested on Aug 10 and since then they had been in the prison.

Mr Kakakhel pointed out that sniffer dogs could not be relied upon in such cases. He added that in one such incident in Nowshera district sniffer dogs were used to track some robbers and the dogs stopped at a police station.

He pointed out that according to an SC judgment the evidence of a dog was no evidence.

APA Kamaluddin Khan said that they were willing to release the old man on humanitarian grounds, but the petitioner had not been receiving him.

Mr Kakakhel pointed out that why they were releasing a dying man whereas other detainees had been kept in detention.