ISLAMABAD, May 15: A man detained by intelligence agencies since 2011 told the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday that over 500 terrorism suspects had been kept in an internment centre in Lakki Marwat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Rana Amir, who went missing in 2011, also was detained at the centre. This was confirmed by a defence ministry official who told the court on May 2 to ask the KPK government to produce him before it.

On the directive of Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, the interior ministry and the KP government produced Amir during the hearing of a petition filed by his wife Rashida Amir.

Responding to the court’s questions, Amir said that intelligence personnel had picked him up from his dairy farm in Rahimyar Khan on Feb 10, 2011.

According to him, the agencies initially kept him in solitary confinement for five months somewhere in Bahawalpur. From there he was taken to Lahore and Peshawar and subsequently to Lakki Marwat.

He said he had been kept in a dark room and he saw daylight after several months when he was being brought to the IHC.

When asked how he identified the place of his detention, Amir said initially he guessed about the area from the call of prayer (Azan) and announcements made from mosques on loudspeakers. Later he talked to other detainees who informed him about the place.

He told the court that the Lakki Marwat centre housed more than 500 suspects in about 20 barracks.

He said that he had come to know during interrogation that he had been picked up on suspicion of being an activist of Lashkar-e- Jhangvi but he denied having any link with the proscribed organisation.

But Deputy Attorney general Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri told the court that according to the internment order Rana Amir had been arrested from Khajuri check-post near North Wazirstan Agency.

He alleged that the suspect belonged to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and was involved in the killing of a security official. Security forces found six grenades, a suicide vest, an AK-47 rifle and 180 bullets in his possession.

Justice Siddiqui directed the authorities to furnish details about Amir on May 24 and ordered the army authorities and the KP government to allow members of his family to meet him.

The petition for his recovery was filed in the court on May 28, 2012 after his family failed to ascertain his whereabouts with the help of police.