PESHAWAR, June 1: The Peshawar High Court has put on notice the director-general of Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), the provincial police officer and other officials on a writ petition challenging detention of a former PAF employee suspected of being member of a militant group.

A two-member bench issued the orders while hearing a writ petition filed by a resident of Mardan, Mohammad Sohail.

The petitioner said his brother Mohammad Zaheer, a former employee of the Pakistan Air Force, was arrested in Swat district in a shootout following a bank robbery on Dec 2, 2004 and admitted to CMH Rawalpindi with bullet wounds.

The Swat police said that the robbers belonged to a banned militant organisation.

The bench comprising Justice Muhammad Raza Khan and Justice Jehanzeb Raheem restrained the Swat anti-terrorism court from continuing with Zaheer’s trial in absentia.

The petitioner said that two ISI functionaries had taken the detainee from the CMH a few days after he was admitted there and since then his whereabouts were not known. He suspected that the detainee might have been killed.

Advocate Siddique Haider Qureshi appeared for the petitioner and pointed out that the Swat anti-terrorism court had been conducting trial in the absence of the detainee. He said that since the detainee had been taken away by the ISI officials from judicial custody, the trial court was responsible to ensure his production before the court.

The lawyer requested the high court to stay trial proceedings by the anti-terrorism court.

The respondents in the petition include ISI director-general, Colonel Hameed and Major Sikander of ISI, superintendent of police (investigation), Swat; the ATC judge, interior and defence ministries, and government of the NWFP.

The petitioner said that the SP (investigation) Swat had requested ISI officials to hand over the detainee so that they could interrogate him and his trial could be conducted, but in vain.