ISLAMABAD, Nov 10: The chairman of Pakistan-Afghanistan Defence Council, Maulana Samiul Haq, was put under house arrest on Saturday to prevent him rousing unrest against the government.

“Police have directed me not to leave my home,” he told AFP by telephone from his home town of Akora Khattak.

“They have surrounded my house and no one is allowed to go out. This is sheer injustice.”

Police said they were acting on orders to prevent the religious leader from entering Punjab to plan protests against Pakistan’s support for the US military campaign against the Taliban.

The chairman of the PADC, Samiul Haq, is a vocal supporter of the Taliban militia.

Maulan Sami said his son, Hamid ul Haq Haqqani, had also been arrested under laws which allow the detention of people suspected of plotting unrest.

The move came ahead of the council’s eight-member central committee meeting scheduled in Islamabad on Saturday to discuss nationwide anti-US protests. Party members said the meeting had been cancelled.—AFP