ISLAMABAD, Dec 10: The Supreme Court ordered intelligence agencies on Friday to allow family members to visit the 11 Adiyala prisoners who were in their custody.

A mystery about the fate of the prisoners, who had been missing from Adiyala jail since their acquittal on terrorism charges in May this year, was solved on Thursday when Advocate Raja Mohammad Irshad, the counsel for the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence, informed the court that the agencies had ‘recovered’ the men from terror camps and were now questioning them for masterminding terror campaigns after which they would be tried by the Field General Court Martial under the Army Act 1952.

The order for arranging a meeting between the relatives and the inmates was issued by a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Ghulam Rabbani and Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday after the counsel submitted a written report in compliance with a court directive.

Advocate Ilyas Siddiqui, the counsel for the prisoners, told Dawn that he did not know how the meeting would be arranged because he had no idea where the prisoners had been kept. “Unless the government itself approaches the relatives, the possibility of any meeting appears to be remote,” he added.

The court was hearing a joint petition filed by Atiqur Rehman and others against the alleged kidnapping of Dr Niaz Ahmed, Mazharul Haq, Shafiqur Rehman, Muhammad Aamir, Abdul Majid, Abdul Basit, Abdul Saboor, Shafique Ahmed, Said Arab, Gul Roze and Tehseenullah from Adiyala jail on May 29 this year.

The bench put off further hearing till the first week of January.

On Thursday, Advocate Siddiqui had sought a court direction for the meeting between the prisoners and members of their families.

The relatives had accused counsel Raja Irshad of misleading the court and said that whatever he had said was nothing but a pack of lies.

The counsel had informed the court that the prisoners belonged to a well-knit group of terrorists and were taken to their hideouts by persons disguised as spies in areas where the army was currently engaged in an operation against militants. They were found in terror camps after the agencies launched an operation against the groups and arrested 20 to 25 terrorists. The counsel claimed that the prisoners were high-profile terrorists who had links with terrorist outfits and masterminded various terrorist attacks, including a rocket attack on the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra, anti-aircraft shots fired at a plane carrying former President Pervez Musharraf, suicide attacks on a bus of an intelligence agency in Rawalpindi and at the main entrance of the GHQ, bomb blasts at the Rawalpindi Parade Lane mosque and killing of a number of senior army personnel.

The prisoners had been acquitted by trial courts in four terrorism cases, including charges under the Explosive Substance Act. The Lahore High Court had on May 26 upheld the trial court’s decision of exonerating them of the charges.

But District Coordination Officer Imdadullah Wassal issued a detention order to prevent their release. After the expiry of the order a similar decree was issued by Punjab’s Home Secretary Shahid Khan.

Both the orders were challenged before the LHC’s Rawalpindi bench by the petitioners. Subsequently, the high court ordered them to approach the judicial commission on missing people set up by the Supreme Court.