LAHORE: The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) had arrested nine suspected militants belonging to banned militant outfit Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) from the Farooq-i-Azam Madressah in the Cantonment area late on Thursday and sealed it.

A CTD spokesman said on Friday a police team after receiving intelligence reports about the presence of LJ militants in the madressah, run by LJ, conducted a raid and arrested suspects, namely Mubashir Ahmed, Muhammad Sarfraz, Tahir Hasam, Muhammad Firdous, Muhammad Talha, Usman Ghani, Tamseel Ahmed Siddiqui, Aamir Mahmood and Abdul Waheed.

The CTD team shifted the suspects to an undisclosed location for interrogation.

Seminary patron-in-chief Qari Maqbool Farooqi managed to escape from the scene.

A senior CTD official told Dawn the seminary was the last stronghold of the LJ in Lahore and was also involved in various terrorism incidents.

He said the CTD officials recovered a huge quantity of hate material from the seminary and later sealed it under the National Action Plan.

He said it was the first seminary sealed after launching of the NAP in the country.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2015