Pakistan has detained another pro-Taliban Islamic party leader as it cracks down on radicals before a general strike called for this week, party officials said on Thursday. Maulana Fazlur Rehman, head of his own faction of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI) party, was removed from his home, where he was under house arrest, on Wednesday by police to a government rest house, party officials said.
He was taken away from his house on Wednesday because authorities said he continued to make statements against the government despite being under house arrest," a party official from the north western city of Peshawar said. "We have no contact with him now," Abdul Jalil Jan said.
There was no immediate comment from the government on the detention.
The first Islamic leader to be arrested was Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of the Jamaat-i-Islami party.
The party is at the forefront of a campaign by hardline Islamic parties against Islamabad's decision to support US military strikes on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban as punishment for sheltering Osama Bin Laden.
The detentions have come ahead of a general strike on Friday called by pro-Taliban Islamic parties in Pakistan.
But party officials of both the groups say government pressure will not stop them bringing the country to a standstill to protest against the US bombing of Afghanistan. "The detention will definitely have an impact. Workers will now work harder and tempers will rise," said Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, deputy leader of the JUI party.

"The main leaders have more patience in dealing with the government. The second tier leadership is always more militant and if even they were arrested, the third level leadership will be even more militant... so the government is trying to provoke us," Ahmed said.
The general strike called by the council, comprising nearly 35 big and small Islamic religious parties, is to show that the majority of Pakistanis oppose US-led strikes against Taliban.
The Taliban are under intense attack by the United States for sheltering Bin Laden, the man Washington says planned the September 11 suicide hijack attacks on the United States.
He is projected by most of the Islamic groups as a hero of Islam, visible on T-shirts and posters in each anti-US demonstration in Islamic Pakistan.
Both the detained leaders represent parties that can cause law and order problem for President Pervez Musharraf's government, which has so far effectively contained the reaction in Pakistan against the US strikes on Afghanistan.
Authorities in the North-West Frontier Province have also filed sedition accusations against Ahmed and Rehman for allegedly stirring revolt against Musharraf through public speeches.
Ahmed has called on the army to remove military ruler Musharraf if he does not withdraw support for the United States, now in its fifth week of bombing Afghanistan. Bureau Report