LAHORE, Oct 29: Police on Friday thrashed and detained 20 suspected members of the banned Hizbul Tehrir from a mosque outside Lohari Gate. A Palestinian was among the arrested.

The outlawed organization was scheduled to hold a demonstration outside Muslim mosque in the locality against what they believed the US oppression in Iraq and the arrest of its members in Pakistan.

Much before the scheduled time of the protest, the police had deployed plainclothesmen in and outside the mosque. When a group of around six Hizb activists carrying placards and banners reached there, the plainclothesmen tried to get hold of them and, in the process, thrashing them a lot as they put up resistance.

At the same time activists present inside the mosque started chanting slogans against the government. The police stormed the mosque, dragged them out and thrashed them too.

Later, the police bundled them in vans and drove them to various nearby police stations. Shopkeepers in the locality claimed that some of the arrested were innocent passers by and vendors.

City circle police ASP told reporters that six of the detained had been freed, while a case had been registered against 14 men. Lohari police SHO Javed Iqbal has been made a complainant in the case, who stated in the FIR that the activists had tried to create a law and order problem.

Those detained were identified as Zeeshan, Salim Bhatti, Salman, Ishaq, Ikraam Mustafa, Shahzad, Athar, Irfan Ahmad, Munawar Anis, Yaqoob, Younus (stated to be a Palestinian), Irshad Ahmad, Abu Daood, Abdur Razak, Riaz Baig, Khurram, Mushtaq, Muhammad Husain, Gulfam and Sahir. Further investigation is under way.