Indonesian lawyers have complained that police had refused them permission to see six students who were deported from Pakistan on suspicion of terror links.

The six include Rusman Gunawan, a younger brother of top Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror suspect Hambali.

"We deem that national police headquarters is guilty of gross human rights violations and of obstruction of justice," said Munarman, the head of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute.

Munarman said lawyers were originally given power of attorney to represent two of the group. But he said police had pressured students to revoke the power of attorney.

Since the students' return to Indonesia late last Thursday, he said, "the families or the lawyers have until now not received even a single letter on their legal status. Are they suspects or witnesses?" Munarman said the six were being questioned by the national police's anti-terror department headed by Brigadier General Pranowo.

He said lawyers planned to complain to the National Commission on Human Rights about the denial of access.

"Police have not yet determined whether they are suspects or not because they are still being questioned as witnesses," said a national police spokesman, Sunarko Danu Ardanto, declining to elaborate.

The six had been studying at the Abu Bakar Islamic University in Karachi when they were arrested in September. An Islamabad-based security official has said they were part of "a sleeper cell" of the al-Qaeda-linked JI. JI is blamed for a string of attacks including the Bali blasts that killed 202 people in October 2002.

The official said they were placed under surveillance in August following information gleaned from the interrogation of Hambali, who has been in US custody at a secret location since his arrest in Thailand on August 11.

Another 13 Malaysian students, also suspected of links to JI, were arrested with the Indonesians and have already been deported.