ISLAMABAD, April 27: The capital police on Friday arrested a suspicious-looking youth from outside the Faisal Mosque and later handed him over to a security agency, it has been learnt.

According to sources in the SSP office, the police spotted the boy, wearing brown Shalwar Kameez and sporting a beard, entering the mosque and on suspicion took him into custody. During initial investigation, he was identified as Mursaleen, 17, a resident of Quetta. The boy said he had come to the federal capital en route to Muzaffarabad to take part in the Kashmir Jehad.

He said he was residing in a mosque/seminary at Sector I-8 and had come to Faisal Mosque to offer Friday prayers.

The police blindfolded the youth and shifted him to the Margalla police station, where SHO Mohammad Hussain Lasi further grilled him and later shifted him to the office of Subdivisional Police Officer (SDPO) Saddar circle, Mustanser Feroz. A notebook was recovered from the youth in which his particulars and contract numbers in Muzaffarabad were mentioned.

The police brought the matter into the knowledge of their high-ups who ordered that the boy should be handed over to a security agency, said the sources.

A senior police officer requesting not to be named added: “It is yet to be ascertained whether the youth wanted to take part in Jehad in Kashmir or planned to carry out any terrorist activity in the federal capital.”

He said according to rules, an FIR should have been registered against the suspect and within 24 hours he should have been produced in the court of law to obtain his physical remand.

When contacted, the SHO Margalla acknowledged that he had shifted the boy to the SDPO office, adding nothing was found against him due to which he was released.

The SDPO while talking to Dawn confirmed the arrest and said the boy had been handed over to some other department.