Pakistan’s government announced that it will set up an inquiry commission to investigate the accusations made by six High Court judges against the country’s powerful intelligence agencies.

Pakistan will set up an inquiry commission to investigate allegations that the country’s powerful military-run spy agency has been subjecting federal judges to intimidation, torture, and other abuses to secure favourable judicial rulings in political cases, Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar announced Thursday.

Tarar made the announcement at a news conference in the capital Islamabad, saying the decision was taken at a meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa.

The meeting took place after a letter written by six of eight members of the Islamabad High Court was sent to Isa’s office. The letter alleged that the country’s top spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had been intimidating them to seek favourable decisions in political cases.

Dated March 25, the letter accused the ISI of meddling in judicial proceedings “to seek a certain outcome” An army general runs the spy agency, which is notorious for allegedly orchestrating the making or breaking of elected governments at the behest of Pakistan’s powerful military.

“We believe it is imperative to inquire into and determine whether there exists a continuing policy on part of the executive branch of the state, implemented by intelligence operatives who report to the executive branch, to intimidate judges, under threat of coercion or blackmail, to engineer judicial outcomes in politically consequential matters,” the judges wrote in the letter addressed to the Supreme Judicial Council, which governs Pakistan’s judiciary under the leadership Justice Isa.

The document mentioned as an example that the ISI’s operatives intimidated “friends and relatives” of two of the judges who had refused to take up a state-instituted case related to jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan last year.

It also recounted the abduction of a “brother-in-law” of the Islamabad high court judge by alleged ISI operatives. It added that the abductee “was administered electric shocks” and “tortured into making false allegations” on camera against the judge.

The letter said the six judges had brought such cases in their chief’s knowledge and also met the then-chief justice of Pakistan to “share their concerns regarding efforts of ISI operatives to affect judicial outcomes”.

They said the interference continued despite their chief assuring them that he had taken up the matter with the ISI head, who gave his word that there would not be any such interference, the letter said.

Khan, who has been in jail since last August and faces close to 200 lawsuits and prosecutions, was ousted from power in April 2021 through an opposition parliamentary vote of no-confidence. Khan denounced the move as orchestrated by the military, allegations the institution rejected.

The powerful army ruled Pakistan for more than three decades through coups against elected governments since the country gained independence in 1947.

Former prime ministers, including Khan and Sharif’s elder brother Nawaz Sharif, have publicly accused army generals of interference in national politics in violation of the constitution.

“We want it to be thoroughly investigated because we had also been its victim,” said Tarar, a senior member of Shehbaz Sharif’s ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Tarar said the prime minister will discuss the letter at a Cabinet meeting on Friday before formally appointing a commission of inquiry to investigate the accusations.