KARACHI, 30 November — Around 208 Pakistanis are among 548 people of different nationalities detained in the United States for questioning about possible links with Al-Qaeda terrorist network and for violation of immigration rules.

Reports from Washington quoted US Attorney General John Ashcroft as saying at a press conference on Wednesday night that Pakistanis were the largest group arrested in the US.

Of the 548people arrested, 208 are Pakistanis and 74 Egyptian nationals.

The News which carried the story filed by its Washington correspondent quoted Ashcroft as saying that the law allowed him to withhold the names of those charged under the immigration law. They were identified in a separate list only by their places of birth, the immigration violations they are charged with and the date when they were arrested.

Ashcroft provided for the first time the names of 93 people charged with crimes following investigation. The Pakistani community has protested their selected racial profiling in the US. While other communities are spared, Pakistanis have been targeted not just among Muslims but among all groups. Ashcroft did not explain why Pakistanis were being particularly targeted, especially when Islamabad is a front line state and a key ally in the US-led war against terrorism.

Ashcroft spoke a day before the Senate Judiciary Committee is to begin hearings into the government’s law enforcement efforts, including the detention of hundreds of people on immigration charges and the continuing interviews of 5,000 Muslims.

Of the 93 people named as criminal defendants, about 60 are in custody, a Justice Department list indicates. Most of the charges are relatively minor, like credit card fraud or making false statements when applying for passports. One man, Sohail Sarwer, is a fugitive wanted on charges of credit card fraud.

Pakistan embassy sources had earlier said they had information about 70 of those arrested who were Pakistani nationals, that is, those who held valid Pakistani passports.

The others must be those who had either applied for or acquired US citizenship or did not have valid documents and who had not informed the embassy about their detention.

The issue was taken up with President George Bush by a 15-member delegation of Pakistani-Americans that was invited to the White House for talks.

The talks, on the overall picture of US-Pakistan relations, were mainly with National Security Council officials, but President Bush had also joined in for about half an hour.

Pakistani community organizations, unlike Arab-American associations, have generally not been very vocal about the issue of detained Pakistanis, saying that they have often not been informed about those who have been arrested or who have been victims of hate crimes and racial profiling.

Ashcroft said at his news conference that of the total number of 641 people still in custody, 548 faced immigration charges; the rest were detained on what he called federal criminal charges.

The names of those on immigrations charges were not released, only the numbers and nationalities were detailed. The 104 charged with federal criminal violations were, however, named.

News reports on Wednesday said some were arrested after being found in possession of box cutters similar to those used by the terrorists who crashed three jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Ashcroft alleged that some of those in custody were members of Al-Qaeda.