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Masood Azhar held for domestic reason: Hamid Mir

K J M Varma in Islamabad

Masood Azhar, leader of the Pakistan-based militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, was arrested mainly for domestic reasons and partly under American pressure, Hamid Mir, editor of the Urdu daily Ausaf, said in Islamabad on Wednesday.

The Punjab provincial police has kept Azhar under house arrest since Tuesday.

Mir said Azhar's detention has more to do with his inflammatory speeches and writings against the Musharraf government than pressure from the Indian government to arrest him for his alleged involvement in the recent terrorist on the Indian Parliament.

He said Azhar has been writing extremely critical articles against the Musharraf regime in Jaish publications.

According to a brief official announcement made on Tuesday night, the Punjab police arrested Azhar for delivering provocative speeches and disturbing law and order.

Prior to his arrest, Azhar was banned from entering into the North Western Frontier Province, the announcement said.

Mir, who has extensive contacts among the jehadi groups and was the last journalist to have interviewed Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, said Azhar's detention, has been effected due to domestic reasons and pressure from the US.

Besides being critical of the government, Azhar and Jaish were believed to have been involved in the growing sectarian clashes between the majority Sunni and minority Shia sects.

A radical Islamist organisation fiercely believing in the militant Deobandi fundamentalist philosophy practised by the Taliban, the Jaish was believed to have links with the Sipha-e-Sehba of Pakistan, blamed for sectarian clashes in the country.

Speculation was rife that Jaish had a hand in the recent murder of the brother of Pakistan Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider in Karachi.

Also, a delegation from All Pakistan Newspaper Society has complained to the government that Azhar tried to force editors of many Pakistani newspapers to publish reports that the Jaish was responsible for the October 1 suicide attack on the Jammu and Kashmir assembly.

Mir said in the recent past Azhar had demanded that Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar nominate him as his khalifa (representative) in Pakistan. Omar had declined to oblige Azhar.

Mir said Azhar was an extremely complex case for the Pakistani security officials to handle in a routine manner. He believed that the Jaish chief would be detained and held incommunicado for a while until the heat over the Indian demand for action against him for his alleged involvement in the Parliament attack subsided.

PTI

Complete Coverage: The Attack on Parliament

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