PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Thursday recalled a stay order it had issued last year stopping National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) from cancellation of computerised national identity cards (CNICs) of a prominent business family four of whose members had been missing for more than a year.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Dr Khurshid Iqbal issued the order after arguments advanced by the additional attorney general, Sanaullah Khan, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa advocate general, Shah Faisal Uthmankhel, who claimed that the members of the prominent Alkozai family were Afghan nationals but had acquiredPakistani CNICs.

The bench fixed April 21 for next hearing of a petition jointly filed by several female members of the family including Gulalay Alkozai and Ayesha Alkozai, who are wives of two of the brothers Mohammad Nasir and Usman Khan, and four daughters of Usman, all of whom are residents of Hayatabad Township, Peshawar.

They had last year filed the instant petition claiming that as they had challenged the `enforced disappearance` of Nasir, Usman, and their two brothers Abdul Waris and Zahir Khan, therefore, to pressurise them they were issued noticed by Nadra on May 29, 2024, asking them to appear before Nadra verification board in connection with verification of their CNICs.

The high court had on Nov 13, 2024, suspended the impugned notices and stopped Nadra from proceeding further against the petitioners.

AAG Sanaullah stated that according to Nadra`s verification the petitioners were Afghan nationals. He said that most of thefamily members had already left for Afghanistan.

AG Shah Faisal Uthmankhel also stated that he had filed an application, seeking dismissal of the instant petition.

A deputy director of Nadra, Abdur Rauf Khan, said that the court had issued a stay order last year restraining his organisation from proceeding against the petitioners.

He stated that because of the interim relief granted to the petitioners no action could be now taken against them under Nadra Ordinance, 2000.

The petitioners were represented by Advocate Muazzam Butt, who said that the four brothers had been missing from Hayatabad for over a year. He stated that a habeas corpus petition regarding their `illegal detention` had been filed in the high court.

He claimed that last year the captors of the four brothers had made commitment with the petitioners that they would be set free provided they withdrew an earlier petition regarding their disappearance.He claimed that although they had withdrawn the earlier petition, the captors had not kept their word and the brothers were not set free.

He stated that the four detainees had been abducted from their residence at Hayatabad Township allegedly by persons in police uniform on Feb 28, 2024, and since then their whereabouts were not known.

The petitioners claimed that they had earlier also received notices from Nadra in 2017 under section 18 of Nadra Act, after which the then chief justice of Pakistan had taken suo moto notice of the issue. They stated that they were directed to appear before the Nadra chairman in person.

They claimed that the family members had appeared before the chairman on March 20, 2017, and after verifying all their documents it was decided to clear the CNIC record of the family and declared them Pakistanis.

They stated that a district level committee comprising members of police, intelligence agencies and Nadra had also cleared their CNICs after thorough probe in June 2018.