FAISALABAD, Nov 19: Police raided more than a dozen seminaries in the city and rural areas on Thursday night on the information provided by suspected militant Nazir Ahmad alias Osama Nazir to arrest his accomplices.

Sources told this correspondent on Friday that special teams raided mosques and seminaries in Mamukanjan, Samundri, Nishatabad, Bhaiwala and Batala Colony and minutely checked the belongings of the staff and students.

However, no arrest was made during the operation. The raiding teams warned the managements not to provide shelter or finance the suspects. They said the operation was launched to locate the people who provided Nazir shelter in the city.

According to sources, investigators have obtained 'vital' information about the network of banned religious outfits Jaish-i-Muhammad and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi in Faisalabad, Sargodha and Jhang. More arrests were likely from big cities of the province in the light of information provided by Nazir, they added.

They said Nazir, 28, was a resident of Khairpur Tamewali in Bahawalpur district and was a hardliner among the militant groups. He first joined Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and received training in Afghanistan. Later, he became an active member of the Jaish-i-Muhammad, after the release of Maulana Masood Azhar from India.

After the military operation in the Tribal Areas, Nazir came to the Punjab and took part in the plot to kill President Gen Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. He was a close associate of Omar Sheikh and Amjad Farooqi, claimed the sources.

They said Nazir was residing in Faisalabad for the last couple of weeks in the guise of a student at the Madrissah Fatehul Quran Al Arabia, adjacent to the Jamia Masjid Zikriya, Civil Lines, with a fake name.

They claimed that Nazir had received a call on his cell phone from abroad in which he was given instruction in code words. The call was intercepted by the secret agency network which led to his arrest. Nazir carried Rs1 million head money and was allegedly involved in March, 2002, church attacks in Islamabad.

MURDER: A man was tortured to death by his rivals in Chak 567 GB in Jaranwala on Thursday night. Police said Fazal was intercepted by Khalid, Mushtaq, Noor and others in the main bazaar of the village. They attacked Fazal with sticks and punched and kicked him, killing him on the spot. Police have registered a case against the accused and started investigation.