Najam Sethi, the chief editor and publisher of the widely read political weekly, The Friday Times, was arrested by policemen and security operatives from his house in a suburb of Lahore.

A government statement issued after the arrest Sethi of having links to the Indian spy agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Sethi was being interrogated by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, the statement said.

Police broke the outside gate of Sethi's home in the Punjab provincial capital, forced their way into his bedroom and took him into custody, said his wife, Jugnoo Mohsin, who is the editor of The Friday Times. The magazine has been critical of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government, and Sethi has issued public statements saying he feared arrests.

``Basically this isan attack on the freedom of the press,'' said Mohsin, while talking to journalists in Lahore. She filed an appeal Saturday to the Lahore High Court challenging Sethi's arrest.

Mohsin said when she tried to stop the police, one officer said, ``We can shoot him if we want to. Do you want us to do that?'' She said they forced her into the bathroom, locked the door and took away her husband.

The government statement said Sethi made a ``very damaging'' and ``derogatory'' speech against Pakistan during a recent visit to India. He presented a ``dismal picture of Pakistan to create despondency and doubts in the minds of Pakistanis'' at the behest of the Indian spy agency, said the statement.

But in an editorial in his magazine's latest issue which was available on Saturday, Sethi said his comments were taken out of context by some newspapers in Pakistan and by state-run television.

On April 30, Sethi, a widely read columnist in India too, delivered a lecture in the memory of Foreign secretary Kewal Singh inNew Delhi which led to an argument between him and Pakistan's high commissioner in India, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi. In Sethi's 35-minute lecture, he systematically delineated the crises -- of identity, ideology, economy, foreign policy and national security -- that had come to besiege Pakistan, turning it almost into a ``failed state.''

Given the floor by the mild-mannered moderator, former PM IK Gujral, Qazi proceeded to rubbish Sethi's criticism of Pakistan, saying, ``There's no need for an intra-Pakistani exchange here.'' Sethi added: ``I have always spoken my mind, whether it is in Pakistan, India or the US. I wonder, however, if an Indian will say the same things in Pakistan that I have said here.''

Qazi, however, said: ``When the two countries are engaged in talks right now, for a Pakistani to point towards the systemic failure of his own society, how will they be received here? Najam is pronouncing a doomsday scenario...it is a very disappointing performance,'' he added.

Hussein Haqqani, anopposition politician and columnist who has been critical of the government, was arrested last week. The government said he will be charged with corruption, but so far his lawyers have been unable to see him and say no charges have been laid. Another journalist, Imtiaz Alam of The News, protested the arrest of fellow journalists and his car was later burned by two men he believes were intelligence agents.

Sethi is also known as the unofficial press advisor of former president Farooq Leghari, who has now formed his own party, the Millat (Nation) party. ``Ever since he gave that interview he has been threatened,'' said Mohsin.