Banned Sipah-e-Sahaba's chief arrested in Pak

Sep 25, 2010 |

Lahore

Tags:

Outlawed Sunni militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba's chief Maulana Ahmad Ludhianvi has been arrested at Jhang in Pakistan's Punjab province and shifted to an undisclosed location.

Maulana Ludhianvi, who also heads the Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat, was first taken to the local circuit house from the Markaz, the secretariat of the Sipah-e-Sahaba, by some police officials on the pretext of holding discussions with him on Friday.

He was later arrested under the Maintenance of Public Order law, which allows authorities to detain persons for up to 90 days without formally charging them. A senior police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Ludhianvi had been detained under the MPO.

"Muharram is coming up and the government is concerned about maintaining law and order," the officer told PTI. While delivering a sermon after Friday prayers earlier in the day, Ludhianvi criticised the federal government for adopting what he described as a "weak stance" in the case of Pakistani national Aafia Siddiqui, who was on Friday sentenced to 86 years in prison by a US court following her conviction on terror charges.

He also suggested during the sermon that all minority sects should perform their religious rites within "walled premises to maintain peace." Sipah-e-Sahaba has been accused of links with elements from the Lashkar-e-Jhanghvi and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan involved in targeting Shia and other minorities in Punjab.

Ludhianvi campaigned with Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah for a by-election in Jhang earlier in 2010. Both Shia and Sunni leaders have demanded that the PML-N-led government in Punjab should sack Sanaullah for his links with Ludhianvi and the Sipah-e-Sahaba.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/34508" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-3996347031dade78e0bfc5c23c11be8a" value="form-3996347031dade78e0bfc5c23c11be8a" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="84294895" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>