LAHORE, Nov 17: Intelligence agencies on Wednesday set free owner of the house from where four men suspected of having supplied weapons to terrorists had been picked up on Monday.

The four men have been identified by an intelligence source as Rahim Zareen Khan, his son Shamsher Khan of district Dir, and Gull Mast Shah and Arsala Khan of district Karak, while the house owner as Muhammad Rasheed.

They were rounded up from the house in a colony near the University of Engineering and Technology (UET). A heavy contingent of the Punjab Elite Force was part of the raiding team, which had to scale into the house due to some resistance.

"They dropped me blindfolded on a road," Rasheed told Dawn, adding he together with the four men had been taken to a house where they all were kept in separate rooms.

"They just inquired me about the terms and conditions on which the house had been rented out and why had not I get it registered with the police station concerned." He said he told the investigators that the house had been rented out to Gull Mast hardly 25 days ago.

"I have secured a photocopy of Mast's ID card, although I could not inform the police concerned." Rasheed said Mast Shah and the other men had told him that they had got jobs in a beverage company.

A senior police officer said he was not in a position to say anything about the four men in custody. "I can't comment on their affiliations at this stage. They (the suspects) have criminal links."

Explaining the links, an intelligence source said the four men had been supplying weapons to outlawed militant groups, and at least one of them had also been working for an organization. He added information gleaned from some sectarian activists already in custody had led to the arrests.

Saying that no links of the suspects with Al Qaeda had so far been established, the source added that the weapons supplied by them to a banned group had been used in a terrorist activity in the recent past. Further investigation is under way.