Pakistani Islamic leader Samiul Haq, the former teacher of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, was put under house arrest Saturday to prevent him rousing unrest against the military government.
"Police have directed me not to leave my home," he told AFP by telephone from his northwestern hometown of Akora Khattak.
"They have surrounded my house and no one is allowed to go out. This is sheer injustice."
Police said they were acting on orders to prevent the religious leader from entering Punjab province to plan protests against Pakistan's support for the US military campaign against the Taliban.
The chairman of the multi-party Council for Defense of Pakistan and Afghanistan, Haq is a vocal supporter of the Taliban militia which rules most of Afghanistan with its puritanical version of Islamic law.
Several senior Taliban leaders developed their interpretation of Islamic while studying at seminaries run by Haq in Pakistan.
Haq said his son, Hamid ul Haq Haqqani, had also been arrested under laws which allow the detention of people suspected of plotting unrest.
The move came ahead of the council's eight-member central committee meeting scheduled in the capital Islamabad Saturday to discuss nationwide anti-US protests. Party members said the meeting had been cancelled.
The council called a countrywide strike Friday, which resulted in violent clashes between Islamic radicals and police. Four protesters were killed in a gunbattle in Punjab during the demonstrations -- AFP
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