QUETTA, Jan 7: Security officials on Sunday arrested 16 suspected Taliban from Pishin. According to security officials, the suspects were arrested in a raid by plainclothesmen in the Pishin Bazaar.

Maulana Noor Mohammad, a Muttahida Majli-i-Amal MNA, criticised the arrests and said: “They are not Taliban. They are all students of a Madressah in Pashtoonabad.”

He said that the students of the Madressah had gone to Pishin along with one of their teachers, Mullah Khaliq Dad, for a Tablighi tour a few days ago and were arrested from a hotel.

“They are all Pakistanis and have got nothing to do with the Taliban,” Maulana Noor Mohammad said, adding that their arrest could be construed as a conspiracy to pit religious forces against the army on the behest of the US.