LAHORE: A foreign national, suspected to be an al-Qaeda operative, has been arrested by an intelligence agency personnel during a raid from a hostel of the Punjab University last week, officials said.
The arrested accused, believed to be an Arab national, came to Lahore for leading a suicide mission and was allegedly provided shelter by the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT), the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, they said.
Officials said that intelligence agency personnel conducted a raid in a room in Punjab University Hostel No 1 on Tuesday night and arrested the high-profile suspect. He was taken to an undisclosed location for interrogation.
They said that eight more people including an activist of the University’s student organization were also arrested on the information provided by detained accused.
The Punjab University spokesman Khurram Shahzad said that intelligence agencies did not inform Vice-Chancellor Mujahid Kamran about their operation. He said the university had allotted a room to Statistics Department student Ahmed Sajjad, who allegedly had an association with the IJT.
Shahzad said the university had launched an investigation into the matter as it believed that some elements in the IJT had links with militant organisations.
However, the IJI denied the reports that it was involved in helping the militants. “We had not given shelter to any suspected terrorists,” the IJT spokesman Abdul Moqeet said.
