FAISALABAD, Aug 18: Alleged Al Qaeda activist Qari Noor Muhammad, who had been picked up on Friday night from a local mosque by a team of agency personnel and local police, died in a lock-up on Wednesday.

According to police, Qari Noor had been in the custody of Kotwali Police since Tuesday night and he suffered a heart attack which proved to be fatal.

The Jamia Masjid Mubarik on Dijkot Road was raided on Friday night and besides Qari Noor, two other people, city president of the MMA, Maulana Obaidullah and a student, were detained on charge of providing funds and shelter to Al Qaeda fugitives.

The raiding team also seized files which allegedly contained the record of funds paid by some people to banned militant organizations and some clothes and other material from a house adjacent to the mosque.

According to the local MMA leadership, Qari Noor, along with the two other detained persons, was taken to Lahore for interrogation where he was tortured. It was alleged that there were over 60 marks of torture on the body of Qari Noor.

The MMA also alleged that Qari Noor died of torture at the CIA Investigation Center of Chuhang in Lahore and his body was handed over to the local police which was asked to announce that he had died of heart failure.

On Wednesday, SHO of the Kotwali Police Station, Sheikh Amir Masood, took Qari Noor to the local Allied Hospital and told doctors that he had fainted during police interrogation. The doctors pronounced the Qari dead and shifted the body to the hospital's mortuary.

Later, doctors and police on duty informed Qari Noor's relatives who rushed to the hospital along with local religious leaders. The relatives are reported to have refused to accept the body without consulting lawyers and senior MMA leaders. They threatened to lodge a murder case against the president, the federal interior minister and responsible officials.

According to the MMA, hospital sources confirmed that there were 50 marks of injuries on the body. However, police insisted that the death was caused by a heart failure.

The SHO told this correspondent that police had arrested Qari Noor on Tuesday night from the Gole Bhawana Bazaar near the Clock Tower intersection and found US dollars and Afghan currency notes and some objectionable material in his possession.

He said that the Qari taken to police station and a case, No. 217/2004, was registered under section 16 of the MPO. The local MMA leadership announced on Wednesday that a complete strike would be observed in the city on Thursday against what it called the murder in custody of Qari Noor.

The procession would be taken out after Zohr prayers. It will be led and addressed by the leader of opposition in the National Assembly, Maulana Fazalur Rehman. The announcement was made by MMA leaders during a protest demonstration held outside the Allied Hospital here on Wednesday.

When some youngsters chanted slogans about revenge, they asked them to remain peaceful and wait for the decision of the parties in the MMA. Qari Noor Muhammad was born in Faisalabad in 1962. He became a Hafize-Quran and was appointed the Khateeb of Jamia Masjid Mubarik. He also taught the students in the madressah of the mosque.

Sources close to security agencies claimed that Qari Noor and his accomplices had been the main sponsors and protectors of terrorists belonging to banned militant organizations for several years.

The agencies, the sources said, believed that they had information about the hideouts of the masterminds of Al Qaeda. The main leaders of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi had close links with Qari Noor, the sources said.