Pakistan police launch crackdown on seminaries in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani law-enforcing agencies have started a crackdown in and around the federal capital against miscreants having links with terrorist outfits, detaining dozens of suspicious people from different areas of the metropolis, local media reported Monday.

The police conducted a search operation in various seminaries in Islamabad being run illegally and raided some religious academies suspected by intelligence agencies for their involvement in suspicious activities, intelligence agency sources said.

The sources said that intelligence agencies, in the context of the military operation in South Waziristan, sent a list of different seminaries to the law-enforcing agencies, seeking immediate action against them.

The operation against the suspicious seminaries would continue till the wee hours of Monday and the raiding parties would hit the seminaries located in the jurisdiction of Golra, Bahara Kahu, Shalimar, Karal, Sihala, Shahzad Town, Nelore and Margala police stations, local newspaper The News reported.

Earlier, more than 60 suspicious persons were arrested during a search operation in the areas situated near the army headquarters in the neighboring garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Police sources said that out of the 60 arrested persons, numerous are said to be Afghan citizens. Later, the police released all those who had identity cards and other documents.

Meanwhile, as many as 73 suspects, including seven foreigners, were nabbed when the law-enforcement agencies conducted raids in Lahore, Islamabad and other parts of the country, sources said.