KARACHI, April 3: Afaq Ahmed, chief of Mohajir Qaumi Movement, was arrested in a house in Defence Housing Authority in the small hours on Saturday, police said.

Official sources said a joint team of police and rangers conducted a raid on a house in DHA Phase-II where Mr Ahmed had came to see someone. He was arrested and handed to the investigation wing of the police in a murder case in which the only Haqiqi MPA, Yunus Khan, was facing trial.

In an official communique, a spokesman for the Sindh government said: "Afaq is wanted in several cases of murder, kidnappings, assault on public servants, rioting, etc." He did not disclose the number of cases in which Mr Ahmed has been named.

He said the legal proceedings were being completed for challenging him in the wanted cases before a court. For interrogation purposes, his police custody remand would be obtained from a court, he added.

Haqiqi spokesman Kamran Rizvi said Afaq Ahmed was living in a house in Gulshan-i-Iqbal block 13-D, and he must have been picked up from them. "I don't know whether Mr Ahmed went to DHA and the police picked him up from there. To my knowledge, he has been hiding in Gulshan for long", he added.

He said the police also arrested Riazuddin, former sector chief of Landhi and Mustafa, member Liaquatabad sector committee. They all were taken to an undisclosed location, he added.

Mr Rizvi said the arrest of Haqiqi chief was made at the behest of the federal government as President Pervez Musharraf wanted to seek support of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in connection with a bill tabled in the National Assembly for formation of the National Security Council.

He said that support to the bill by the Muttahida would be a blunder. They should struggle for restoration of the constitution and a true democracy. Instead, they (Muttahida) had been targeting and victimizing their rival MQM-H.

Mr Rizvi maintained that the entire leadership of the MQM-H, including secretary-general Amir Khan, Iqbal Qureshi and others had been detained. "Our 850 members and workers are in jails, several have been killed and 35 kidnapped. Our headquarters 'Baitul Hamza' has been razed to the ground. All these acts are a political victimization", he added.

As news about the arrest of Haqiqi chairman spread, some youths appeared on streets in Landhi, and forced shopkeepers to pull down shutters. However, a heavy deployment of law enforcers was made and the shops and markets were later opened.

SHC MOVED: A constitutional petition was filed in the Sindh High Court on Saturday, praying the court to restrain the government from committing extrajudicial killing of Afaq Ahmed, chairman, Mohajir Quami Movement-Haqiqi, adds PPI.