MULTAN, Dec 13: Police claimed on Monday to have rounded up five activists of the outlawed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi organization who had allegedly carried out a number of robberies to meet financial needs of their outfit.

Speaking at a press conference, Multan District Police Officer Sikander Hayat said police had obtained some valuable information from the arrested men about the organization's network in Karachi, Lahore and other cities of the country.

He said the arrested persons - Qari Abdul Hameed, Haji Sadiq, Bilal Laang, Bilal Bhatti and Faiz Rasool - were also involved in a failed but fatal banditry incident in Shujabad area on Nov 4 in which four people, including one of the assailants, had lost their lives.

In that incident, the staff members of a ginning factory were returning in a van after drawing Rs4.9 million from a couple of banks when five armed men, wearing police uniforms, had intercepted them in the precincts of the Shujabad Saddar police station.

The assailants opened fire when the ginning factory staff did not stop the van. Later, a shootout ensued when the guard of the factory traded fire with the outlaws. Guard Taj Mohammad, van driver Allah Ditta, and an outlaw died in the exchange of fire.

The remaining outlaws had shot and injured a motorcyclist Ahmed Bakhsh in a bid to snatch the two-wheeler while fleeing away from the place of the shootout. Ahmed Bakhsh also died before any medical aid could be given to him. The killed outlaw was later identified as Tanveer Ahmed of Okara district.

DPO Sikander Hayat said the identification of Tanveer had led to the arrest of his accomplices. He said accused Bilal Laang had been closely associated with a number of top Jhangvi militants, including Shakeel Anwar and Qari Allah Wasaya.

Laang had completed a seven-year term in the prison last year after being convicted in the Dera Ghazi Khan jailbreak case of December 1997. The DPO said the arrested men had told the investigators that their organization's head had ordered them to arrange resources in order to carry out sabotage activities throughout the country during the coming month of Muharram.

He, however, kept secret the name of present Lashkar-i-Jhangvi chief, saying: "It (disclosure) will alert the extremists." Police also recovered a sizable quantity of arms and ammunition from the custody of the accused. The DPO said the ISI and the Intelligence Bureau were also assisting the police to arrest remaining accomplices of the arrested accused.