FAISALABAD, June 17: The federal government security agencies claimed on Friday to have rounded up an alleged activist of the outlawed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi for his involvement in a blast near Hazrat Bari Imam’s shrine.
Reports said special teams of intelligence agencies, together with the Elite Force personnel, besieged a house at Dhanola village in Nishatabad police station precinct a few days ago and picked up Qari Ashfaqur Rehman, a prayer leader.
“The raiding teams also took into custody some clothes and books from the house and shifted the suspect to some unknown place in the city.
“The relatives of the suspect have been asked not to lodge any complaint with any agency and he (Qari Ashfaq) will be freed after some interrogation,” sources said.
However, they claimed, Qari Ashfaq, 36, had been shifted to Lahore for further investigation about the whereabouts of masterminds of the bomb blast that left dozens of people dead.
Initial inquiries revealed that Qari Ashfaq had twice been picked up by the police and intelligence agencies during the last five years. However, interrogating teams failed to glean any evidence relating to his links with saboteurs.
The Qari used to be an activist of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi in the late 1990’s, but withdrew himself after imposition of a ban on the organization.
He is currently running the affairs of the village mosque as a prayer leader after the death of his father, Shafi Muhammad, who was the founder Imam of the mosque.
Ashfaq’s sons — Abdul Khaliq, 12, and Abu Ubaid, 8 — and daughters Sabiha, 15, and Buraira, 13, are studying in local schools.
Sources revealed that Ashfaqur Rehman was being monitored for the last many months by the spies to find some vital information about his direct links with terrorist organizations. He was questioned by police teams about a month ago on a report of an intelligence agency which, however, failed to find his links with terrorist organizations.
Senior police officials said they were not taken into confidence before the operation.
THEFT CASE: Civil Lines police registered a theft case against the monitoring committee for finance chairman of the tehsil municipal administration (city) here on Friday.
The case was instituted on the report of TMA clerk Manzoor Ahmed who claimed that union council naib nazim Sarfraz Ahmed had taken away the file of a commercial plaza map and refused to return it despite repeated requests.
The local police had already registered two cases against the accused for taking bribe from vendors by posing himself as a TMA contractor.
When contacted, Sarfraz Ahmed claimed that cases were being registered against him at the beck and call of city nazim Mumtaz Ali Cheema for issuing a white paper about his corruption.