MIRAN SHAH, May 6: Shattered by intense questioning for five hours by Pakistani interrogators pursuing international coalition’s agenda to detect elements linked with the Al Qaeda network, Qari Noor Zaman has not yet recovered from the mental agony he was made to go through.

The political administration of the North Waziristan Agency had picked him up late last month at Gulshan-i-Ilm Madressah to interrogate him for his suspected links with the Al Qaeda and Taliban.

Noor Zaman, 25, hailing from the Talash area in Lower Dir, has not come out of the shock though over 10 days have passed the grilling.

Tribesmen looking after the Madressah affairs believe the fragile Noor Zaman, who looks like an Arab and is fluent in Arabic, had developed health imbalances soon after his questioning by senior civil and military interrogators.

The international coalition’s war on terrorism, after winning over Afghanistan and making Pakistan to abide by its dictates ranging from allowing American air force to use its airbases to letting Americans carry out swift operations in Fata after Faisalabad, has become a delicate issue for common Pakistanis.

Any one sharing resemblance with Arabs or fluent in Arabic or [mis]reported as a suspected Al Qaeda man or having been linked with it by the quasi-literate informers of intelligence agencies may land in trouble.

The managers and students of the Madressah believe that Qari Noor Zaman, posted at Gulshan-i-Ilm in December, had been interrogated only for his resemblance with Arabs and delivering sermon at the Friday prayers in Arabic.

Lying on a floor mattress in the corner of a large room in Gulshan-i-Ilm, Qari Noor Zaman is covered under a blanket on a sunny day in Miran Shah, the headquarters of the North Waziristan Agency. H1rned from the agency headquarters hospital when this reporter visited him two days back.

Wearing a white shalwar-qameez suit of the Arab style, Noor Zaman said he had never been to Afghanistan, nor associated with Al Qaeda or Taliban.

“Local tribesmen had been asking me not to deliver the Friday’s sermon in Arabic but I never did so because my conscience was clear and the Almighty Allah also likes the Friday’s sermon to be given in Arabic,” said Noor Zaman, educated from Lahore’s prestigious Jamia Ashrafia.

Terming Noor Zaman’s five-hour detention following a raid on the seminary uncalled for, Maulvi Abdul Khaliq Haqqani, who looks after the Madressah affairs, said Noor Zaman had recently been posted as the prayers leader by Tableeghi Jamaat for one year.

“Before he was posted to the Madressah in December, there used to be another prayers leader who had been transferred upon completion of his one-year term,” said Maulvi Khaliq while trying to establish that the agency administration had acted against Noor Zaman on wrong information and only because of the fact that the young Qari appears to be an Arab.

Set up in 1996 by the Wazir Bura Khel sub-tribe of the North Waziristan Agency, Gulshan-i-Ilm houses about 250 students studying different subjects of the Islamic education and learning Qirat.

The raid conducted on the madressah not only brought the credibility of the intelligence agencies under question but also it caused unrest among students, the Wazir Bura Khel tribe and general tribesmen and religious circles of the North Waziristan Agency.

“The release of the Qari after five hours interrogation clearly reflects that the administration acted in haste on incorrect information,” said Maulvi Abdul Khaliq.