KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 12 (AFP) - Malaysian police released Monday an engineer
     detained under the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA) over the weekend but arrested the
     head of a Moslem intellectual group in his place, sources said.

     Police and human rights workers said Mahinder Singh Randhawa, a 55-year-old ethnic
     Indian civil and structural engineer, was released at noon after being arrested late Saturday
     during an anti-government rally in the capital.

     At the same time, however, police arrested Shaari Sungip, president of Jemaah Islah
     Malaysia (JIM), one of a dozen non-government organisations belonging to a new opposition
     group known as the Malaysian People's Justice Movement (Gerak).

     Sources said Shaari, 41, was arrested as he was visiting an acquaintance at the national
     university teaching hospital south of Kuala Lumpur.

     The latest arrest brought to 18 the number of people detained under the ISA since ousted
     deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was arrested on September 20. Anwar and four of the
     others are still being held under the law, which provides for indefinite detention without trial.

     Malaysian parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said his party was "shocked that
     the government is continuing with its arbitrary arrests."

     He called on Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to state whether the latest detentions mark
     the "second wave of ISA arrests against dissent" in Malaysia.

     Lim's remarks were echoed by Tian Chua from human rights group Suara Rakyat Malaysia
     (Suaram), or Voice of the Malaysian People.

     "I feel Mahathir may try to continue his tactics to terrorise the people so that they do not dare
     to speak out," Chua said. "It is outrageous for the government to use the ISA to detain
     individuals. They cannot justify the arrests. They did not demonstrate on the streets."

     Chua himself alleged in a report published Monday he was beaten by a baton-wielding riot
     policeman and also punched and kicked in the head and back by other officers when he was
     detained while observing a protest last month.

     The human rights worker chairs the Coalition for People's Democracy (Gagasan), another
     opposition coalition whose members overlap with Gerak, which is chaired by the head of
     Parti Islam Semalaysia (PAS).

     Lim, who heads the Demcratic Action Party, a member of both groups, called for the
     unconditional release of those still held under the ISA including Anwar himself, one of his
     lawyers and a state youth chief of the main ruling party.

     "Recent events seem to indicate that the authorities are on the verge of a major crackdown
     against civil rights and fundamnetal liberties," he said.

     Lim said a total clampdown on meetings of political parties would "mark the country sliding
     into a new dark age on the eve of the new millennium. It will also give Malaysia another
     black eye to our international image."

     Confusion over Randhawa's fate erupted earlier after deputy inspector-general of police
     Norain Mai said he was not informed of any new arrest.

     Before his arrest, Randhawa was last seen in front of the courthouse opposite a square
     where some 10,000 people gathered Saturday in the biggest ant-government protest in the
     capital since Anwar's arrest three weeks earlier.

     Local news reports said he was arrested for activities "prejudicial to the nation" although his
     daughter told the Sun newspaper her father had nothing to do with Anwar's reform
     movement. "My father is not pro-Anwar," she said.