KARACHI: The Pakistan Rangers informed on Monday an antiterrorism court about having taken into custody a senior Muttahida Qaumi Movement worker under 90-day preventive detention for questioning.

The personnel of the paramilitary force along with their legal team brought Abdul Rafiq alias Kaiyan to the ATC-III amid tight security and produced him in the chamber of Judge Saleem Raza Baloch along with a detention order and a jail warrant. The counsel for the suspect also turned up.

The Rangers informed the court that the suspect was picked up during a targeted operation in Mehmoodabad a couple of days ago and contended that they had credible information about his involvement in targeted killings, extortion and other offences that fell within the ambit of the anti-terror law.

Therefore, they submitted that the suspect had been placed under preventive detention for three months under Section 11EEEE (1) of Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, for further questioning and he had been produced along with relevant documents for the information of the court in compliance with Section 11EEEE (3) of the ATA.

The suspect was being shifted to a special detention centre set up at the Karachi central prison for further questioning, added the Rangers officials.

The paramilitary force had neither mentioned the political affiliation of the suspect nor referred to any specific case about his involvement in the crimes in the documents submitted to the court.

The Rangers disclosed his affiliation after the MQM itself announced that Rafiq Rajput, the in-charge of the Mehmoodabad sector of its organisational structure, had been taken into custody by the paramilitary troops and condemned his arrest.

The Rangers claimed in a statement that during initial interrogation the suspect had confessed to his involvement in the May 12 carnage and to issuing orders to a team of targeted killers as its head.