LAHORE, April 14: Over 80 per cent of the arrested members of banned militant groups have submitted “disassociation certificates” for their release when their detention period ended on April 12, it was learnt here on Sunday.

Some 700 suspected members of the organizations were arrested in Punjab alone in a countrywide crackdown after President Musharraf on Jan 12 announced his new policy against religious terrorism. They were detained in Punjab jails for three months through an administrative order issued by the Punjab government.

Of the total arrested men, some 150, including patients, elderly people and children, were released a day before the Eidul Azha when their families approached different forums and pleaded their innocence claiming they had been mistakenly arrested. Rest of the arrested people had been divided into two categories. The first category included those suspects who had challenged their detention in courts and the second category included those suspects who had owned their affiliation in one way or the other with terrorist organizations.

Sources in the Punjab government told Dawn that it was made mandatory for the people falling in the two categories to submit a guarantee in any shape for disassociating themselves with the militant groups to ensure their release. Various methods to ensure the guarantees, were discussed by the provincial authorities and the arrested men, too, were asked to suggest which way they could ensure their disassociation from the organizations, they said.

Finally, the sources said, the ministry of interior prepared a disassociation certificate to be submitted by any of the arrested men wanting his release. It sent them to jail authorities in all the four provinces.

“I don’t know who prepared the certificate,” Lahore Kot Lakhpat Jail Superintendent Mian Farooq told Dawn, admitting that all the arrested people did submit the certificates before their release.