QUETTA, July 17: Police arrested a Taliban commander and some former office-bearers of the Taliban movement during raids conducted in different areas of the city on Monday.

“A Taliban commander and 42 other Afghans were arrested in Quetta,” Chaudhary Mohammad Yaqub, Inspector General Police of Balochistan, told Dawn, adding that police had launched a campaign against illegal immigrants.

He said that in two days, 140 Afghan nationals had been arrested from different areas of the provincial capital for living here illegally.

Another police officer said that in a raid on a house in Nawa Killi late on Monday, a former Taliban commander identified as Mullah Hamdullah, was arrested.