LAHORE, 7 July 2004 — Pakistani police have arrested over 150 foreigners, mostly Afghans and Arabs and some African religious students, for living in Pakistan illegally, police and security officers said yesterday.
The arrests were made during a weeklong operation in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province and the arrested men are being interrogated at different detention facilities, said Tariq Saleem, deputy police inspector general. He would not say whether the suspects had any links with terror groups.
“I am not in a position to say anything about it at this stage,” he said.
Thousands of young Muslims come to Pakistan to study Islam. A small number become involved in militant activity.
Saleem said the raids were carried out by police in major cities in the province, including Lahore, the provincial capital, after authorities received reports that some foreigners were involved in “criminal activities.” He would not elaborate.
However, an intelligence officer said at least two suspects arrested in Faisalabad, Pakistan’s main industrial city, are believed to have been involved in “anti-state activities.” “They might have links with Al-Qaeda and Taleban,” the officer said on condition of anonymity.
In Multan, a city about 300 km southwest of Lahore, about 150 Pakistani students of Islamic schools staged a rally to condemn the arrests.
Meanwhile, Islamic parties yesterday agreed to a government initiative to register foreigners in the country’s South Waziristan tribal region where an unspecified number of Al-Qaeda and Taleban operatives are believed to be hiding.
Spearheaded by the strong religious alliance of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, the Islamic parties had opposed military action in the region running along the Afghan border where two bloody operations this year killed 170 people including suspected terrorists and government soldiers.
The agreement between the government and the MMA on the contentious registration issue came after a meeting about the security situation in the troubled region.
“The MMA is not opposed to the registration process but believes the government has to reconsider its approach by trying to take the Parliament, specially the MPs from Wana, into confidence instead of resorting to the use of force,” MMA spokesman Liaqat Baloch told reporters after the meeting.
The special briefing was arranged by the government to convey its viewpoint to the Islamic leaders on anti-terrorism efforts and was attended by Prime Minister Shujaat Hussain, top MMA leaders and senior military and security officers.
