QUETTA, Jan 30: Judicial Magistrate Haroon Agha on Friday sent journalist Khawar Mehdi Rizvi and two others to jail on a judicial remand. The journalist was arrested on the charge of making a video-film on a fake Taliban training camp.

The crime branch police produced the three accused before the court seeking further physical remand. However, the court did not extend the remand in police custody and sent them to the Quetta District Jail.

Accused Syed Allah Noor and Abdullah Shakir recorded their statements under Section 164 before the judicial magistrate. Later, they were taken to the Quetta jail.

Talking to newsmen after attending the court proceedings, the journalist said that he was innocent and had done nothing against the country. "I am quite innocent," he said, adding that the local people were also kept in the dark like French journalists.

He said that through this scandal the government wanted to damage the credibility of the international media. His elder brother Sohail Mehdi who reached Quetta on Friday, was also present outside the court. He met his younger brother for the first time after the latter's arrest.

He criticized the government and intelligence agencies for keeping his family in the dark about whereabouts of his brother since taking him into custody along with French journalists.

He alleged that his brother had been tortured by investigating agencies and he was not feeling well. He said the government had repeatedly denied reports of Khawar's arrest but now he was produced before the court as a result of international media pressure.

"All cases filed against Khawar are fake," Mr Sohail Mehdi said, adding that he and his family would not beg for his release. "My family will not bow down before the government and would defend Khawar in all courts," he said.

He said: "We would expose the role of agencies in courts so in future they do not torture any other innocent person," Mr Sohail Mehdi said, adding that the common man was considering himself insecure due to increasing powers of these agencies.

The Chairperson of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, Balochistan Chapter, Malik Zahoor Ahmed Shahwani, confirmed to newsman that Mr Khawar Mehdi had made an appeal to human rights organizations to help him. He said the HRCP would defend the journalist when his case would be taken up by the court next week.