KARACHI, Jan 31: A suspect wanted in the Daniel Pearl kidnapping case has died. When a police party reached his residence in Ahmedpur Sharqia to investigate, fateha was being offered for the suspect Arif, said Sindh police chief Syed Kamal Shah, here on Thursday.

Speaking at a press conference at the Central Police Office, the IG said: “The cause of Arif’s death is yet to be established.”

He said an Islamabad-based journalist Asif Farooqi, who was in touch with Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, had helped the Karachi police in the investigation, as he visited Karachi and shared the information he had.

The IG said a police party left for Islamabad along with Asif. Asif also pointed out a person identified as Arif, resident of Ahmedpur Sharqia, who was suspected to have links with Jamaat al-Fuqra, an organisation which became known through e-mails in which different pictures of the victim were shown, he added.

The provincial police chief said the police were working hard to unfold the mystery shrouding the “kidnapping” of the US journalist and two investigation teams were working on it with the cooperation of the CPLC.

Syed Kamal Shah further said Daniel wanted to interview a person related to a suspect in the shoe-bomber case who was arrested in the United States.

He was last dropped by a yellow cab behind Hotel Metropole, the IG asserted, denying reports that the US journalist was last seen at a restaurant near Hotel Metropole.

The IG also denied that Mubarak Ali Shah Gillani surrendered before the Rawalpindi police the other day. “He was, in fact, taken into custody after a raid.”

The two cab drivers the missing journalist had hired in the city had also been thoroughly interrogated by the police, said Syed Kamal Shah.