Pakistani police have taken into custody a Taliban official and a spokesman of the group Thursday, a Kabul-based Afghan newspaper reported Saturday.

"Mohammad Yaser who is in charge of Taliban's press department and a spokesman of the movement was arrested from Naw Shar area two days ago," the independent daily Arman-e-Millie reported in its front page.

Educated in Saudi Arabia, Yaser, who served as minister during the Taliban regime, had worked as director of the press department of the militia in Pakistan over the past one-year.

He was on way from Naw Shar to Peshawar when the personnel of law enforcing agencies took him into custody.

No Afghan official was available to comment on the subject. Afghan officials usually accuse Pakistan of supporting Taliban, a claim rejected by Islamabad as groundless.

Pakistan late last month claimed the arrest of five key Taliban leaders including Mullah Kabir, a close aide to the movement's chief Mullah Mohammad Omar, but the group's chief spokesman Mullah Abdul Latif Hakimi termed it as baseless.

Source: Xinhua