RAWALPINDI - Police and other law enforcement agencies (LEAs) have started picking up innocent people during a crackdown in the city despite having no connection of detainees with Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT).
Sadiqabad police detained a lecturer from his academy, being run in a rented building owned by a local leader of PAT, reliable sources revealed to The Nation here on Friday.
“Police have picked up Arif Sherwani during a raid and sent him to Adyala Jail for 15 days,” the sources added. Meanwhile, 8 PAT workers were also arrested from different areas of Sadiqabad, the sources added.
Kashif Sherwani, young brother of the detainee, who along with his other family members arrived Sadiqabad police station for the release of his brother, told The Nation that the police had arrested his brother despite of the fact that he had nothing to do with any political activity or has any link with PAT.
“You are providing financial assistance to PAT in pretext of rent of the building. Therefore, you are arrested,” Kashif quoted a police office as saying at the time of the raid at his academy.
Earlier, SHO Sadiqabad Abdul Sattar told the victim family that the government of Punjab had issued 15-day detention orders for Arif Sherwani and the police detained him under 16 MPO. He added that he was sent to Adyala Jail and would be released after success of talk between government and Qadri. Similarly, police stormed into the office of PAT at Chandni Chowk and handcuffed two people present there. Reportedly, police ransacked the office.
According to PAT City Secretary Information Suhail Abbasi, police intensified the crackdown against PAT workers and their relatives in a bid to bar them from participating in Youm-e-Shuhada, scheduled to be held in Lahore tomorrow. He said that PAT high command has directed the important leaders and workers to go into hiding to avoid arrest.
He added that police picked up six PAT workers including a female Nazima during raids and shifted them to unknown locations.
He said that police detained Maulana Ghulam Mustafa from Dhoke Syedan on account of having soft corner for PAT. He said that police also rounded up workers from Mandra, Chakbeli Khan, Peoples Colony’s Nazim Rizwan and Cantt’s Nazima Saima Ahmed.
The sources also revealed that Chief Minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif called all the top bosses of Rawalpindi Police to chalk out a comprehensive strategy to block the ways of PAT workers.