PESHAWAR, May 13: A religious scholar from Peshawar, after the seven-month-long detention in America for his alleged ties with the Al-Qaeda, arrived here on Sunday.

Hafiz Iqbal Qureshi, a teacher at the Quran Learning Centre in Birmingham, Alabama, had been taken into custody in Oct 2001 by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and grilled at an interrogation centre. But a local court ordered his release after a month, and allowed him voluntary departure from the United States.

Despite the court’s order, the FBI kept him under detention for six months more. After his release, he boarded a New York-Lahore bound PIA flight and arrived on Saturday in Lahore. But, the PIA  crew disallowed him to disembark at Lahore airport. He was flown to Karachi, and then allowed to quit the plane.

Talking to Dawn by telephone, a relative of Mr Qureshi alleged that the PIA crew carried out orders of their American masters, as the FBI had advised the PIA authorities to dislodge the religious scholar at Karachi.

He said, though Mr Qureshi argued with the crew that his brothers and other relatives, who had come from Peshawar, were waiting for him at Lahore airport, he was refused outrightly.

A PIA official told Mr Qureshi that the FBI wanted his disembarkment at Karachi airport instead of Lahore airport, he said.

Mr Qureshi is the son of Maulana Mohammad Yousuf Qureshi, orator of the historic mosque Mohabat Khan in Peshawar, and considered to be a good friend of the American diplomats in Pakistan.