PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Wednesday directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial police officer to inform it about the police officials, who had taken into custody a would-be suicide bomber’s suspected handler in 2012 before he went missing.

Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Ikramullah Khan also directed the defence and interior secretaries to file comments about the habeas corpus petition filed by Ahmad Jan, brother of suspected handler Jehangir Khan.

The bench directed additional advocate general Waqar Ahmad Khan to ask the PPO to identity the policemen, who arrested the suspected handler of the bomber, and produce a report on it.

Ziaul Haq, lawyer for the petitioner, said the suspected handler was allegedly arrested along with a teenage suspected would–be suicide bomber in the jurisdiction of Sarband police station on Nov 20, 2012.

He said several television channels had shown local police taking into custody the suspected handler and would-be bomber wearing an explosives-filled suicide vest.

Defence, interior secys told to respond to habeas corpus case

The lawyer said initially, the police informed reporters that the detainee was the handler of the would-be bomber but the next day, they retracted the statement and didn’t even name him in the FIR.

He said the minor suspect was produced before an anti-terrorism court but until now, his suspected handler had yet to be produced before any court of law.

SHO of the Sarband police station Safdar Khan appeared before the court along with lawyer Mian Abdul Fayyaz and denied that the police had arrested the suspected handler of the would-be bomber.

However, the chief justice observed that his statement could not be believed as the suspected handler was shown on the television and that the police had made claims about his arrest.

Mian Abdul Fayyaz said the suspected handler was not with the police and was in the custody of an intelligence agency.

He, however, expressed ignorance when the bench asked about the said agency.

The bench later adjourned hearing into the case until June 26.

PRODUCTION ORDERED: The bench directed the chief of an internment centre in Ghalanai (Mohmand Agency) to produce an internee, a tuberculosis patient, on June 11.

The order was issued on a habeas corpus petition filed by Nehayat Bibi against the detention of husband Murad Ali.

The additional advocate general informed the bench that the man had been interned at Ghalanai Internment Centre and therefore, he was not in the jurisdiction of the provincial government and instead he was in the jurisdiction of the federal government and the additional chief secretary of the Fata Secretariat.

The bench observed that during the last hearing, the court had sought a report on the health condition of the internee after his wife had claimed that he had been suffering from tuberculosis, but the said report had not been produced yet.

Deputy attorney general Manzoor Khalil informed the bench that a missing student of seventh grade had been interned at the Ghalanai Internment Centre.

The bench directed the DAG to file a report on internee Mohammad Naeem about the status of his case on June 26, the next date of hearing.

Mother of the internee Gul Bano has filed a habeas corpus petition, saying her son was a seventh grader and was taken away by the law-enforcement agencies around three years ago in Shabqadar (Charsadda and that he had been missing since then.

Meanwhile, in 19 other petitions related to enforced disappearances, the bench directed the defence and interior ministries and the provincial home department to produce separate reports about the whereabouts of the missing persons mentioned in the petitions.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2014