FAISALABAD, Aug 17: Following a statement made by the federal interior minister about alleged links of the Jamaat-i-Islami with terrorists and the reports pertaining to a search operation against them, the local religious leaders and heads of madaris have gone underground.
On Tuesday, leaders of the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Samiul Haq group), the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazlur Rahman group), the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan and the Jamiat Ahle Hadith Pakistan stayed away from their offices and houses.
Meanwhile, heads of most of the seminaries situated in the city and its suburban areas of Samundari, Tandlianwala and Jaranwala have confined their activities within their madaris. Security guards have also been deployed at the main gates of major religious institutions.
An active member of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal told this scribe that the central leadership of religious parties had asked their activists and workers not to resist the present move of the agencies to capture what it called Al-Qaeda fugitives and their financers and protectors.
But the local MMA leadership has given a protest call for Thursday, and announced that it will stage a rally against the arrest of MMA city president Obaidullah along with Hafiz Noor Mohammad and a student from Mubarik Masjid, Dijkot Road.
SUSPENDED: Four excise officials, including an excise and taxation officer (ETO), have been suspended from service for their involvement in stolen vehicles' registration scandal on Tuesday.
The excise and taxation secretary, in the light of a report prepared by an investigation team, issued suspension orders of ETO Farman Masood, Assistant ETO Mahmood Butt, Inspector Ghulam Rasool and clerk Zahoor Ahmad.
The mastermind, Inspector Javed Iqbal, is already in jail after registration of a number of fraud cases against him. The investigation of the fraud is still going on by the police, excise authorities and other secret agencies to trace the real culprits behind the scene.
Police on June 5 arrested four excise personnel and seized the record of motor branch. After preliminary interrogation, three of them were released while Inspector Javed Iqbal was booked.
The investigators found clue to the involvement of some senior officials and influential personalities of the city in the scam. They pointed out that there was a vast network comprising on corrupt functionaries of the police, excise and taxation department, employees of some car manufacturing companies and gangs of vehicle-lifters.
Over 500 cases came to light in which the excise officials tampered with the record and issued registration books to smuggled or stolen vehicles.