PESHAWAR, Sept 6: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday put on notice the federal interior secretary in a writ petition challenging detention of the chairman of Habib Bank Employees Union, Aurangzeb Khan, by an intelligence agency. A two-judge bench of comprising Chief Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Ijaz Afzal fixed Sept 9 for next hearing.

The detainee was a former official of the HBL and had been retired in Jan 2005.

The petition was filed by brother of the detainee, Mohammad Naeem, a former assistant vice-president of the HBL, praying the court to direct the respondents to produce the detainee before the court so that the court could satisfy itself about the manner of detention.

The petitioner further prayed the court to declare the detention of the detainee as illegal, unjust, improper and violative of fundamental rights and the same be set aside and freedom and liberty of the detainee be restored.

Advocate Qazi Muhammad Anwer appeared for the petitioner and contended that the detainee was picked from his residence situated in Hayatabad township on Sept 3 by plain clothes officials of an intelligence agency accompanied by officials of Hayatabad police station.

He stated that the detainee had not been produced before any court and his whereabouts were not known.

The petitioner has alleged that the raiding team had asked the detainee that he had talked to someone in Saudi Arabia in which he had stated that Pervez Musharraf has no fear of Allah and the prophet. He stated that the detainee had denied any such conversation. However, he added that the raiding team took him away.

The petitioner stated that the detainee was a patient of asthma and had been treated for asthma at the Agha Khan Hospital, Karachi. He added that the detainee was also a patient of hypertension and had been regularly using tablets for blood pressure.