A Central Executive Committee member of banned militant outfit Jamiatul Ansar has been released after a six-month detention. Qari Abid, the second-in-command of the group formerly known as Harkatul Mujahideen, was arrested for his suspected involvement in two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. The Harkatul Mujahideen was banned in August 2002.His second wife, an Egyptian national, has close relations with women who were arrested in May 2005 along with Abu Al Firaj Libbi, the mastermind behind the assassination attempts on Musharraf. âQari Abid was arrested by security agencies in the first week of June 2005 and later released in the last week of December 2005,â sources said.
They said that Abid, who was also the prayer leader at a mosque in Chaklala Scheme-III in Rawalpindi, spent the detention period in interrogation cells across the country. They said regular visits from militants belonging to banned group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was another reason for his arrest.