LAHORE, Oct 4: Lahore police have raided houses of leaders, office-bearers and workers of PML-N and detained at least 25 of them on Thursday, party’s secretary information claims.

A capital city police source also confirmed the raids but he put the arrests up to 18.

“Yes, raids were conducted on Thursday but also culminated the same day following the directions of highups,” he said.

The raids were being conducted to stop the PML-N activists to become a part of All Pakistan Democratic Movement’s protest call on Oct 6, the day of presidential election.

He told Dawn that the police, in a crackdown launched after 4pm, raided a PML-N meeting with local traders being held at the showroom of additional secretary-general Mian Muhammad Tariq in Samanabad and detained him, UC-93 nazim Mumtaz Serwer Gujjar and a newly-joined leader Faisal Chaudhry.

He claimed secretary finance Lahore chapter Naeem Mir, however, managed his escape from the meeting.

Sheikh Khalid Aftaab, additional secretary general Lahore, was detained by the Gulshan-i-Ravi police.

The Shafeeqabad police raided the house of additional secretary information Lahore Imran Ali Goraya at Karim Park, harassed the family members but he managed his escape from there.

All arrested activists had been detained in lockups of different police stations, secretary Imran Nazir claimed.

The Ravi Road police detained Chaudhry Karamat and Abid Jameel, North Cantonment police arrested Arshad Munir Sindhu, Ishaq Dogar and Maqsood Ahmed.

According to a PML-N release, raids were also conducted on the houses and offices of Afzal Khokhar, Rana Mashood, Akram Gujjar, Zulfikar Rathore, Main Aslam, Sheikh Kabir Taj, Arif Qureshi and others.

The police sources informed Dawn that the police were detaining the PML-N activists already wanted in cases registered in different police stations under 16 MPO and section 144 of Cr PC.