17 June,2009 12:52 PM IST | | PTI
The arrest of five Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) activists in Pakistan's Punjab province sparked speculation here that the outlawed terror group's chief Maulana Masood Azhar had been detained. The five JeM members were arrested in Sialkot on Tuesday.
Soon after the arrests were made, unconfirmed reports said officials of intelligence agencies had arrested Azhar, who is wanted in India for alleged involvement in several terror attacks.
Waqar Chohan, the police chief of Sialkot district, however, only confirmed the arrest of five JeM members. "We have taken five JeM men into custody for their suspicious activities. Maulana Masood Azhar was not among them," he said.
Azhar was freed along with two other terrorists in exchange for passengers of an Indian Airlines jet that was hijacked from Kathmandu in Nepal to Kandahar in Afghanistan in 1999.
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India had asked Pakistan to hand him over soon after the Mumbai attacks but the Pakistani government said it was not aware of his whereabouts.
