A division bench of the Supreme Court will today hear a petition challenging the arrest and detention of alleged Al Qaeda operative Qari Saifullah Akhtar, who is accused of involvement in an assassination attempt on President General Pervez Musharraf and other terrorist activities. When Akhtar was arrested five months ago in Dubai, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, who is among the respondents in the case, had hailed it as a major breakthrough in the war against terror. Washington had also praised his arrest. A Supreme Court bench of Justice Hamid Ali Mirza and Justice Falak Sher will hear the petition, which has been filed by his brother-in-law, Abdul Rehman Mehmood. The petition says that since Akhtar was arrested in Dubai on August 6, 2004, his family has not been told the charges against him, been allowed to meet him, or even been informed where he is being kept.