PESHAWAR, July 16: Families of eight young men allegedly picked up by an intelligence agency recently have expressed concern about their safety as their whereabouts remain unknown.

According to media reports, the eight were arrested in Chitral by personnel of an intelligence agency, suspecting them to be members of the outlawed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and involved in last year’s murder of Allama Ziauddin Rizvi. The killing in Gilgit had triggered violence.

According to family members, three of the detainees are juveniles.

They said none of them had ever indulged in any terrorist activity and were not members of any banned outfit.

“Neither have they been produced before any court, nor have we been told where they are kept,” said the brother of a detainee. He said the eight were being kept in illegal detention.

“We have been searching for them but no law-enforcement agency is conceding their arrest,” he said.

The arrested people were identified as Naeem, Qari Haseebullah, Mohammad Shakir, Habib, Maulvi Sajjad, Mohsin Khan, Habibullah and Hameed.