July 14, 2006	Friday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 17, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, July 13: Central Secretary General Pakistan Peoples Party Azad Kashmir (PPP AJK) Chaudhry Mohammad Yasin was arrested here on Thursday on unknown charges and taken to Kotli, Azad Kashmir.

The house of the PPP AJK leader was cordoned off at 11 a.m. before he was asked to go with the AJK police.

He however refused to go with the police and insisted that he should be shown arrest warrants for it.

The arguments between Chaudhry Yasin and the police lingered on and various leaders of his party, including Abdul Salam Butt, Ashraf Janjua and Akram Shah, and a large number of media persons reached the spot.

Talking to newsmen, Mr Yasin said he was being punished for his loyalty to Ms Benazir Bhutto. He said he was winning the AJK Legislative Assembly elections by a lead of 9,000 votes, but alleged that the results were changed overnight on the interference of an army officer.

He was later told that his arrest was in connection with a quarrel in Kotli.

He was produced before a judicial magistrate.

He told the magistrate that he had not been provided a copy of the FIR and was being told that the arrest was in connection with a quarrel.

The magistrate, however, allowed the AJK police to take him for one day.

President PPP AJK Sahibzada Ishaq Zafar, while talking to Dawn, condemned the arrest of Chaudhry Yasin and regretted that a copy of the FIR had not been provided to him.

He said the people were expecting the military government to remain impartial at this stage, but lamented that it was not so.

He said such kind of political victimisation cannot force PPP AJK leaders to switch over their loyalties and betray their leader, Ms Benazir Bhutto.

Central Secretary Coordination and spokesman of the PPP AJK Ashraf Janjua said Chaudhry Yasin’s defeat was made possible through rigging and his arrest was meant to prevent him from revealing the facts about the rigging and playing a role in the formation of a new government in Azad Kashmir.