RAWALPINDI, Nov 6: Three men arrested on the charge of financing New York Square botched bombing convict Faisal Shahzad pleaded not guilty after a court formally indicted them here on Saturday.

Hunbal Akhtar and Mohammad Shoaib Mughal, residents of Rawalpindi, and Mohammad Shahid Hussain of Islamabad denied the charges and said they would defend themselves before the court.

Special Judge Anti-Terrorism Court-I Malik Mohammad Akram Awan put off the hearing till November 24 with the directive to the prosecution to produce their witnesses to support the charges.

The Sihala police had charged the three men with having links with Hakeemullah Mehsud of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and extending financial support to Faisal Shahzad in planning terrorist attacks in the US.

The investigators said the three men had met Hakeemullah and Faisal Shahzad at the house of one Shoaib for one week along with three suicide bombers.

They said it had been established that the three men had contacts with Faisal Shahzad.

The police said two of the bombers were Qaiser Mehmood and Qari Hussain while the third remained unidentified.

Later, the men who stayed at the house of Shoaib carried out suicide attacks in Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir.

The police stated abduction cases about the disappearance of Humbal, Shoaib and Shahid were registered with different police stations in the twin cities and on September 5 they received information that the three had gone underground, not kidnapped.

Police arrested them near Islamabad Highway when they were travelling in a car (LXL-8485) while two other occupants present in the car - Faisal and Faheem - escaped.

The investigators got the registration number of the car checked from Lahore and found it fake as the number had been issued to a motorcycle and its owner remained unknown.

Police said a laptop and maps of important buildings of Islamabad, including parliament house, were recovered from the vehicle.

They said the accused in their statement before a judicial magistrate had confessed to their links with Faisal and providing him 13,000 dollars for the attacks in February and March this year through a money changer in Blue Area Islamabad.