The arrest of Tehreek Al Furqan group chief Abdullah Shah Mazhar brings to four the number of extremist leaders arrested in Pakistan over the past week, but Mazhar is the first with any clear link to groups on the U.S. lists.
Police said Mazhar, a former Jaish leader who recently set up his own group, was detained as more than 20,000 radicals rampaged through the streets of this southern city on Friday in opposition to the US-led bombing of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia.
"Mazhar was arrested for violating a government ban on the display of weapons," police officer Ali Raza said.
Some 300 extremists blocked a main road in this southern city yesterday in protest at Mazhar's arrest, on charges of displaying weapons in public during violent anti-U.S. demonstrations.
An official spokesman here said the organisation will continue to be headed by Maulana Masood Azhar, who was released from an Indian jail in exchange for a hijacked Indian airline aircraft to the Afghanistan city of Kandahar last year.
A well known cleric, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzi, who has been speaking on its behalf, will continue to be its patron.
The spokesman said that Jaish-e-Mohammad's bank accounts have been transferred to unknown individuals so that its funds, ordered to be seized by the Bush administration, remain intact.
There was no official comment from the Pakistan government, but the organisation was banned by the government of General Pervez Musharraf last month.
India, it may be added, had protested over the activities of the organisation after a suicide attack in the Indian part of Kashmir last month.
However, the Pakistan government is not very happy with the American ban on the Al Rasheed Trust, and the inclusion of the name of a new organisation, Rabita Trust, which has headquarters in Lahore.
Both these are charitable organisations, and had nothing to do with terrorism, government officials said on being contacted.
