PESHAWAR, March 5: The Peshawar High Court directed here on Wednesday the director-general of Inter Services Intelligence to positively file comments within one week in five writ petitions challenging the detention of five Arab employees of a Kuwaiti NGO.

A two-member bench, comprising Justice Khalida Rachied and Justice Qazi Ahsanullah Qureshi, fixed March 20 for next hearing.

The defence ministry has already expressed ignorance about the whereabouts of the detainees, saying that they were neither picked by the Pakistan Army nor any other agency.

The petitions are filed by senior advocate Ikram Chaudhry on behalf of the relatives of the five detainees — Hamad Ali, Mohammad Al Ghazali, Hassan Khalil, Al-Rasheed and Jalib Mohammad. They are employees of a Kuwaiti NGO, Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, one of the seven organisations put on terrorist list by the US State Department last year.

The petitioners claimed that the detainees were picked by a joint raiding team comprising personnel of the FBI, the ISI and the Pakistan Army.

Deputy Attorney-General Salahuddin Khan informed the court that the federal government was not aware of the detention of the five. The bench expressed annoyance over non-filing of written comments by the ISI and observed that it would give one more opportunity to the respondent (ISI) to file the written comments.

Justice Khalida Rachied observed that the petitioners had given an undertaking about the arrest of the detainees by the government agencies. She said if they were not picked by the government agencies then the court should be informed about who had arrested them.

Mr Salahuddin Khan said the alleged detainees were not residents of Pakistan. The bench observed that irrespective of the fact that they were not Pakistani nationals, they were residing in Pakistan and it was the responsibility of the government to take care of them.

Justice Ahsanullah Qureshi asked Mr Khan that if they were arrested by the FBI he should inform the court about that.

Mr Ikram Chaudhry, argued that the petitioners were arrested 10 months ago. He said according to press reports the detainees were shifted abroad by the United States. The ISI DG, he added, should be asked to file comments.

The respondents in these petitions are: the Federation of Pakistan through General Pervez Musharraf, the Ministry of Defence through defence secretary, the Ministry of Interior through federal secretary, the NWFP Inspector General of Police and the Director-General of the Inter Services Intelligence.

According to news reports the detainees had already been handed over to the US government and shifted to Camp X-Ray in Cuba.