HARIPUR, Jan 28 The suspended tehsil nazim, Iftikhar Ahmed Khan, was arrested from the Karachi airport on Tuesday evening, police sources here said.

He is the principal accused in the assassination case of former provincial minister and MPA of the ruling Awami National Party, Akhtar Nawaz Khan.

According to the police, the accused was reportedly travelling to Dubai on a fake passport when FIA officials off-loaded him from the plane and arrested him.

Haripur police said that the nazim was directly charged in the FIR lodged with the Khalabat Township police station on September 10, 2008 wherein complainant Mushtaq Ali Khan, brother-in-law of the slain MPA, accused the tehsil nazim, his brother Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan, their father Haji Mohammad Ashraf Khan, nephew Asad Javed and two other persons for allegedly killing the MPA from PF-51. Slain Akhtar Nawaz's official police guard Aurangzeb was seriously injured in the incident.

The police had registered criminal case against the tehsil nazim and his four relatives under the anti-terrorists law.

Following assassination of MPA, the tehsil nazim had managed to flee the district along with his father, brother and nephew while the police arrested two of the nominated accused later. His father secured bail from the local court.

The nazim was later suspended by the provincial government and declared proclaimed offenders by the local court.

Meanwhile, the Haripur police have approached the home department for handing the accused over to them for interrogation and two inspectors from the investigation wing have been reportedly dispatched to Karachi in this regard.