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| July 22, 2005 | Friday | Jumadi-us-Sani 14, 1426 |
MMA leaders accuse SHO of settling score: Crackdown intensifies
SAHIWAL, July 21: As the swoop against suspected militants continued on Thursday, two MMA leaders in Sahiwal denied the charges levelled against them and accused the SHO of settling an account with them. The Chichawatni city police registered cases on the charges of treason and terrorism against MMA District President Mufti Muhammad Usman and JUI-F central council and district president Qari Aneesur Rehman, saying they had delivered provocative speeches to incite people against the government, besides taking out a protest procession.
The case was registered under section 298 of PPC, 16-MPO and the Anti-Terrorist Act.
The two leaders told journalists that the Chichawatni city police SHO had registered the cases against them because they had filed against him a writ petition in a high court for addiction and patronizing illegal prize-bond slips’ business.
The police had tried a day before to arrest the two leaders from the chambers of their lawyers, who protested and saved their clients.
Meanwhile, the Sahiwal police had arrested a leader of the outlawed Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan and four MMA men for “delivering provocative speeches against the government.” Those arrested were: Maulana Munir Ahmad (SSP), MMA’s Maulana Muhammad Din, Maulana Mahmood Ahmad, Maulana Nazir Ahmad and Qari Bashir Ahmad.
Cases have been registered against them under 16-MPO and section 11 of the ATA.
Maulana Nazir is learnt to have been taken to an unknown place while the others were sent to the central jail on a 14-day judicial remand.
FAISALABAD: The local police have started instituting cases under 16-MPO against the arrested men allegedly associated with the banned religious organizations.
The Jaranwala police had registered a case against Maulana Sajid Farooqi under 16-MPO and sent him behind bars. The cases have also been registered against Qari Muhammad Shafi, of Chak 220-RB, Maulvi Jabbar Husain, of Chak 5-JB, and Maulana Fayyaz Ahmad, of Chak 128-GB.
The police continued raids on seminaries for the second consecutive day on Thursday. Three people were rounded up from Mamukanjan and another religious activist was arrested in Batala Colony.
The arrested men have been detained at Saddar and Sargodha Road police stations. Sources said cases against them would be registered under 16-MPO and they would be detained for a month.
SHEIKHUPURA: The district police claimed to have arrested two alleged extremists of an outlawed religious grouping during pre-dawn raids.
Police sources said Amjad Husain Gillani, a former district president of the Tehrik-i-Jafria, was taken into custody from his residence in Housing Colony while SSP’s Iftikhar alias Manna was held from his residence in Sharqpur city by the local police.
They were detained under section 3-MPO on the orders of the Punjab Home Department.
BAHAWALPUR: The Bahawalpur police arrested two suspected militants in Khairpur Tamewali — a hub of seminaries — on Wednesday night. They were Arshad Hamdani and Ghulam Shabbir.
The police have intensified the hunt for militants many of who have gone underground after the London bombings and reports of possible raids.
Police sources claimed that there was a list of 10 suspected militants to be held in the district. The law enforcers are now looking for the remaining eight.
The police, however, declined to disclose their names.
MULTAN: Around 26 more activists of the outlawed religious and militant organizations have been rounded up during the last 24 hours, making the total of the arrested people 50 in the six districts of the former Multan division.
Multan Range DIG Malik Muhammad Iqbal confirmed the number of arrests in Multan, Khanewal, Sahiwal, Vehari, Lodhran and Pak Pattan districts.
Most of the arrested people had been detained under section 16-MPO. Sources in the police department, however, claimed that some of the arrested activists had been acquitted by courts because no one had dared to speak against them.
“They will be produced before the court for retrial of the cases so that they can be given appropriate punishments,” a source in the department said on the request of anonymity.
OKARA: In Okara, Maulana Abdul Rauf Chishti and Abid Husain of the banned SSP were taken into custody.
The police arrested the latter when they had raided a place to handcuff Maulana Abdul Mannan Usmani believed to be the actual culprit.
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