ISLAMABAD, Dec 23: A leader of Pakistan-Afghanistan Defence Council (PADC), Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, was booked on Sunday under section 188 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and 16 MPO, a law concerning maintenance of public order.

The Aabpara police arrested him from the G-6 Sunday Bazaar around 10am, and sent him to Adiala Jail, the city magistrate, Farasat Ali Khan, told Dawn.

A case against Maulana Ghazi was registered with Aabpara Police Station on December 14 for delivering an anti-state speech and using ‘very harsh’ words against President General Pervez Musharraf.

Maulana Ghazi, son of late Mualana Abdullah, is the Naib Khateeb of Lal Mosque, where a Madrissa has been established for over 200 students. He lives in the premises of the mosque.

“The police had been directed to avoid entering the mosque and wait for the Maulana outside”, the magistrate said. However, he added, that the case registered against him was a bailable one.

In his speech during a demonstration staged outside the mosque on the occasion of Jummatul Wida, Maulana Rashid had informed the participants that he had been receiving threats from the government for using harsh words against the rulers.

Talking to Dawn, Lal Masjid Khateeb Maulana Abdul Aziz, elder brother of the accused, claimed that a police official who had arrested Maulana Ghazi informed him that the action was taken on army’s instructions.

He also claimed that an army major had been sitting at Aabpara police station for last three days in connection with the arrest. Ulema of the country, he said, were being pushed to the wall by the government on the instructions of the US.

When asked about arranging bail for Maulana Rashid, he said a decision in this regard would be made at a meeting of local Ulema, scheduled to be held on Monday.

Following the arrest, a protest demonstration was staged in the premises of the mosque. The speakers warned the government of dire consequences if Maulana Ghazi was not released.

They said the government was tightening the noose around Ulema under a pre-planned programme to crush religious groups and Jehadi outfits in the country. They said hundreds of religious groups’ activists would turn themselves in voluntarily under a ‘Jail Bharo Tehrik’.

The speakers claimed that Taliban could not be eliminated, as they had scattered among the people in the US, the UK and other countries.