PESHAWAR, Nov 6: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday allowed more time to the local police for tracing the culprits involved in dumping of dead bodies stuffed in gunnysacks in different areas with the direction to locate detention centres illegally maintained by the secret agencies within the city and its surroundings.

A two-member bench comprising PHC Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth was informed by a deputy inspector general of police investigation, Idrees Khan, that family members of only 26 of the deceased persons had in their statements suspected involvement of secret agencies in the disappearance and killing of their relatives.

He said that family members of four of the deceased persons did not record their statements whereas those of rest of the deceased did not suspect anyone for the commission of the offence.

Peshawar police chief Imtiaz Altaf said that police had registered FIRs in all those cases. He claimed that after the court had taken cognisance of the issue no further incidents had taken place.

The human rights cell of the high court had referred this issue to the chief justice in Aug this year after newspapers reported that 26 bodies were dumped in different areas.The bench expressed dissatisfaction over the autopsy reports of the deceased persons stating that the doctors concerned had in most of the cases mentioned starvation as cause of their deaths.

The court directed the director general of health services, Shareef Ahmad Khan, to warn all those doctors and transfer them to some other less attractive places so that loud message go to others not to act under the influence of agencies.

The bench also directed the director general to constitute an inquiry board of competent doctors and head it himself for investigating cause of deaths of each of the 26 deceased persons. The court ordered him to submit the report in that regard on Dec 18, the next date of hearing.

During previous hearing the court had directed provincial police officer to constitute a joint investigation team (JIT) to probe every case of the dumping of dead bodies stuffed in gunnysacks in different areas.

Idrees Khan informed the bench that the investigation team was consisted of SSP Asif Zafar Cheema and three competent DSPs. He said that they had recorded statements of the family members of the deceased and needed some more time to trace out the culprits.

He said that in one of the cases a deceased, Arif Shah, had returned from Qatar, but he did not come out of the airport and remained missing. He added that his relatives claimed that few months ago his body stuffed in gunnysack was found.

He stated that relatives of another deceased claimed that he was taken away by some persons in army uniform boarding five vehicles from tehsil Balwal of Sargodha and his body was found in Peshawar.

The bench inquired how a person kidnapped from Sargodha could be brought to Peshawar without the notice of local police. The PHC chief justice inquired whether those vehicles were not stopped at any of the so many checkpoints set up in the city.

When the chief justice inquired about the number of detention centres run by the secret agencies in the provincial capital both Idrees and Imtiaz expressed ignorance. The chief justice asked them when their SHOs were aware about each and every prostitution, gambling and drug den then why they were not aware about the illegal detention centres.

Meanwhile, the bench ordered to club a writ petition filed for release of an alleged detainee with the instant case as his relatives said that his dead body was handed over to them last month.

Qazi Fazle Khaliq, a brother of the deceased Qazi Baseer Ahmad, informed the court that during previous hearing the court had directed the government that the detainee should either be set free or shifted to internment centre. However, he said that instead of following court orders the detainee was killed and his body was dumped at Lasan Nawab area in Mansehra.

He stated that his brother was picked up by Elite Force of police on July 15, 2011, from his residence at Speen Khak, Nowshera, and another boy named Shahid Afridi was also picked from a nearby seminary.