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Fresh crackdown on militant outfits
in Pakistan

The Pakistan police in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation has rounded up more than 100 activists suspected of aiding the Al Qaeda and Taliban in carrying out bomb attacks in the country.

The arrests were made on Monday in a joint operation carried out by the Punjab and Sindh police, Pakistani daily Dawn said on Tuesday.

"The personnel of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation are said to have supervised the crackdown," it quoted sources as saying.

A senior Punjab police officer, however, denied the FBI's involvement. "There is nothing like that. We acted upon our own information and took into custody some dozen people belonging to the banned jihadi organisations."

The crackdown, launched on Sunday, was mainly aimed at two banned Sunni sectarian outfits, the Sipha-e-Sehbha of Pakistan and its armed wing the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The two were believed to be close to the Al Qaeda and Taliban.

The police said the raids were conducted on information gathered from some of the arrested leaders of the two outfits.

The raids were conducted on seminaries, mosques, offices and residences of the activists and leaders of the groups.

Those arrested were shifted to unknown places for interrogation.

According to the newspaper, some of the SSP men alleged that "the law enforcers desecrated the mosque by entering there with their shoes on and they also thrashed people present there without differentiating between the activists and the worshippers".

PTI

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