QUETTA, Oct 13: Security forces arrested an official of the Afghanistan defence ministry on Friday while he was entering Pakistan near Chaman without valid documents, a Frontier Corps statement said.

Identified as Abdur Rehman, the official was taken into custody in the morning near the Friendship Gate on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Mr Rehman was carrying about half a million Pakistani and Afghan currency notes as well as documents pertaining to the Afghan defence ministry, said the statement.

According to the documents recovered from his possession, he was a former army man and an official of the defence ministry.

The FC claimed that 1,580 Afghan nationals were arrested this year for entering Pakistan illegally.