MARDAN, June 23: The detention of a man suspected to be involved in an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was challenged before a Mardan district and sessions judge on Saturday.

A habeas corpus petition was filed by Israr Khan, the brother of the detainee, Mustafa Kamal, a resident of the Ghala area. The petitioner alleged that his brother had been picked up by officials of the Katlang police station on June 19. Since then he is missing.

The SHO of the Katlang police station expressed ignorance about the detention of Mustafa Kamal, claiming that he and his staff had not detained the man.

The court, presided over by Yahya Zahid Gillani, fixed June 25 for hearing of the case.

It is learnt that intelligence agencies suspect the detainee to be behind the suicide bombing of 2004, aimed at killing Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Fateh Jang. The attack had left six people, including Mr Aziz’s driver, dead.

The petitioner stated that on June 19 at 9.30am he and his brother Kamal were in the Katlang bazaar when the area SHO, with the aid of two head constables, arrested Kamal and took him to an unknown place.

Later, when the petitioner visited the police station to meet his brother, the SHO denied that Kamal had been arrested. Since that day, the petitioner said, his brother had been missing and his whereabouts were not known.