ISLAMABAD, June 1: Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday directed the senior superintendent of police (SSP) Islamabad to recover two minor girls from the custody of their alleged abductors and produce them in the court on June 8.

The judge issued the directions while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Mehboob Ahmed seeking recovery of his nieces who, he alleged, were kidnapped from his house in Loi Bhir on May 20 by their father’s relatives – Amjad Nawaz and Arshad Nawaz.

He also claimed that the mother was “unrightfully being kept away from her daughters.”

The petitioner’s counsel Barrister Zafarullah Khan told the court that Maheen, 8, and Dil-i-Shayal, 5, were kidnapped by Amjad, brother of their father, and others at gunpoint. He said the police had registered a case against the accused and also arrested Amjad but the minor girls were yet to be recovered. He alleged that the police were reluctant to recover the girls due to pressure from a senior politician from Multan.

The counsel said the petitioner’s sister married Allah Nawaz, a resident of Multan, in 2003 but due to ‘inhumane treatment meted out to her’ she left him and was living with her brother.

According to the petition, when all the possible social efforts for the custody of minors failed, the mother filed a petition with the district and sessions court of Multan which on August 30, 2011, ordered her to retain the custody of the minors.

In September 2011, the father of the minors filed a suit in the guardian court of Multan to have the custody of the children which is still pending. However, by flouting the sessions court’s orders, the relatives of Allah Nawaz again took the two minors from the custody of their mother and detained them at some secret place.

The federation’s counsel, while representing the police, said a separate case for the custody of the minor girls was pending in the court of guardian judge and the next date of its hearing was June 12.

The court, however, observed that the custody of minors was a separate matter and directed the SSP Malik Yousuf, who was present in the court, to produce the minor girls on the next date of hearing.