PESHAWAR, May 22: The supervisor of a religious school, Qari Subhanullah, was released on Monday, allegedly after having been kept in the illegal custody by an intelligence agency for more than four months.

According to members of his family, Qari Subhanullah only said that he had been picked up by intelligence agency officials on suspicion of having links with extremist religious groups.

They quoted him as saying that he was frequently asked questions about Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and was finally released when his captors realised that they had the wrong person.

Supervisor of Iqra Rozatul Atfal in the Gulbahar area, Qari Subhanullah was picked up on the night of January 14 from his Dura Road residence. Allegedly, officials of an intelligence agency and local police officials scaled the outer walls of the house without a search warrant.

The Qari’s wife, Ms Ayesha, had filed a habeas corpus petition in the Peshawar High Court, requesting that her spouse be produced in court and set free since he had no links with any extremist group.

The respondents named in the petition were the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Crimes Investigation Department (CID), Crimes Investigation Agency (CIA), Ministry of Interior, Peshawar’s senior superintendent of police and the SHO of Gulbahar police station.

After Qari Subhanullah’s reappearance, the petition was withdrawn in the Peshawar High Court on Tuesday. Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Khursheed Ahmad Shahan informed a two-member bench comprising Justice Tariq Parvez Khan and Justice Qaim Jan Khan that the detainee had been left outside the city by his captors and had returned home.