LAHORE, Jan 26: Intelligence agencies picked up a lawyer on Friday evening on suspicion of his association with militant groups and suspected links to Friday’s suicide bombing in Islamabad.

The intelligence sources said Advocate Chaudhry Muhammad Farooq, 32, also known as C M Farooq, a resident of Gulshan-i-Ravi, had been under surveillance for over a year. “We detected some of his e-mails he had been sending for around two weeks. We got proof that he had been interacting with some Al-Qaeda members,” they claimed. “We have also seized a laptop and a pistol from the lawyer.”

When Dawn contacted Farooq’s family, Muhammad Omar, who introduced himself as the lawyer’s brother, confirmed the arrest. Omar, however, claimed that Farooq was innocent. “My brother has nothing to do with terrorism.”

Omar admitted that his brother had been in touch with some religious groups and their leaders in connection with their cases in courts. He said the lawyer had also visited Afghanistan and Kashmir in connection with Jehad.

Omar said his brother had been running an NGO, Voice for Human and Prisoner’s Rights, for some years. He added the lawyer had also contested some cases of those alleged Al-Qaeda members picked up by law-enforcement agencies on various occasions.

He said the lawyer had also taken up the Lal Masjid, Rawalpindi case in which Ghulam Mustafa Tabassam and Ghazi Abdul Rashed were arrested by intelligence agencies, besides pleading the cases of some missing people.

Four days ago, Omar said, some plainclothesmen visited his brother and quizzed him in the Wana suicide bombing case.

He said his brother had just left the Lahore High Court on Friday when a vehicle began chasing him. They intercepted him near the Civil Secretariat, he said, quoting a colleague of his brother. He said his brother had opened fire on chasers who retaliated. “The colleague believes that my brother had also sustained a bullet injury.”

Sources said the lawyer had also been picked up and questioned for over a week last year. “We kept him in custody and questioned him about one of his brothers-in-law, who had then returned from Afghanistan,” they said, adding the lawyer was however cleared and set at liberty.