PESHAWAR, March 21: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday took notice of dumping of four bodies on a roadside in Mardan and directed police to conduct their postmortem.

The bench directed an additional advocate general to convey to Mardan police to conduct proper postmortem of the deceased persons and compile a report in that regard.

The court ordered that police should also ascertain the identities of the deceased persons. The additional advocate general was directed to submit a report in that regard to the high court.

The four bodies were lying along Mardan-Charssada Road in Ibrahim Khan village and were spotted by some locals of the area early on Tuesday.

The locals then informed police following which officials of Sadder police station went to the spot and shifted the bodies to district headquarters hospital.

All the four deceased were having beards and were aged from 25 to 30 years. One of the deceased was identified as Mohammad Arif, a resident of Normankhel area of Mardan city. His body was handed over to his relatives while the remaining three deceased were buried at Said Jalal Bukhari graveyard.

Meanwhile, the bench disposed of a habeas corpus petition challenging alleged illegal detention of three persons as the detainees have safely returned home.

The petition was filed by Basitullah, a resident of Landi Akhun Ahmed village, stating that his three relatives identified as Shahidullah, Rifaqat and Misri Khan were taken away by officials of Pishtakhara police station on March 4.

The petitioner claimed that after their arrest their whereabouts were not known and they had been kept in illegal detention.

Advocate Sahibzada Riazatul Haq appeared for the petitioner and said that he was informed by the petitioner that the detainees had returned last night. He added that the petitioner did not want to further pursue the case.

When the bench inquired from him whether the detainees were not interested to appear before the court and inform where they had been kept, the counsel replied in negative.