KABUL - The interior ministry on Tuesday rejected as unfounded a UN report that accused Afghan officials of using torture while investigating suspected militants kept in some detention centers.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on Monday issued a report, saying it had interviewed 379 prisoners from 22 provinces from October 2010 to 2011 about their condition in prisons.

Detainees endured treatment that amounted to torture in 47 detention facilities, run by Afghan police and intelligence service, in 24 of the country's 34 provinces, the report said.

The 74-page report raised particular concerns about detention centers run by the Afghan intelligence agency, known as the National Directorate of Security, or 'NDS, which held an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 detainees during the period when the investigation took place.

Rejecting the report, the interior ministry spokesman Ghulam Siddique Siddiqi said Afghan police did not treat prisoners the way mentioned in the report.

"Detainees are subjected to slight torture during investigation process. We have nothing to do with the long investigations as we keep these detainees for few hours before handing them over to other law enforcing agencies and the National Directorate of Security (NDS)," he said.

He admitted that police had beaten and maltreated prisoners in some cases, but rejected the allegations of nails removal, electric shocks and sexual abuse.