Intelligence agencies have released two Baloch sisters taken into custody on charges of “plotting suicide attacks” from NWFP in June 2005 and for their alleged links with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. “We received Arifa and Saba in Peshawar three weeks ago. They were released after spending a year in military detention cells,” Farooqi, a relative of the sisters, told Daily Times. “The sisters left Peshawar for Karachi some two weeks ago,” he added. Bilal, Arifa’s husband, and his mother Gul Andama were also arrested along with Arifa and Saba, but they were released eight months later. Farooqi said the sisters were interrogated for about a year, and they were asked if they had any links with a suicide bombers’ group or a militant organisation.
Following their arrest, the Interior Minister called a press conference and said that intelligence agencies had arrested two sisters who were suicide bombers. The ministry’s statement said that Arifa and Saba, both college students who were arrested from a “hideout” in Swat, were training to become suicide bombers. “The 18 and 20-year-old sisters were trained by their uncle, who has been sentenced to death for his involvement in suicide attacks. The uncle, who belonged to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, reportedly took his nieces to the Waziristan region, where the widow of an Uzbek ‘martyr’ trained them for suicide bombings,” it said.
The Peshawar High Court (PHC) disposed of the sistersÂ’ habeas corpus petitions on August 22 when Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Salahuddin told the court that the Interior Ministry and intelligence agencies did not know about the whereabouts of the girls.