HYDERABAD, Jan 19 A large number of members of the Pakhtun community under the aegis of the Markazi Ittehad Pakhtun Qabail Sindh staged a protest demonstration in front of the press club here on Monday to protest against arrest of six of their community members by the Karachi police in connection with an alleged anti-Taliban operation in Sohrab Goth.

The participants raised slogans against the Karachi police and said that the detained people were being implicated in the case despite the fact that they were arrested from Kotri and then shifted to Karachi.

Speaking on the occasion, Haji Asmatullah Mehsood, Haji Nasrullah and Haji Sher Zaman said that an undeclared operation was under way against Pakhtuns in Sindh in the name of Taliban and Al-Qaeda, which was highly deplorable. They said that any man sporting a beard couldn't be dubbed as a Taliban or an Al-Qaeda associate.

They said that their community members were being harassed by the police. They said that those arrested from Kotri were drivers or associated with other jobs and were innocent. They said that a smear campaign launched against Pakhtuns in the name of Taliban must end now. They said that if the detained people were not released then there would be a wheel-jam strike in Sindh.