KARACHI, Feb 6: The police on Wednesday expanded their dragnet to the entire country to arrest a British national, Ahmed Umer Shaikh, believed to be a key suspect in the kidnapping of US journalist Daniel Pearl.
According to a report from Lahore, a special investigating team conducted a raid on the house of Umer Shaikh on the Mohni Road and picked up two women.
They said the team had information that Umer had spent last night in the house. The women were set free after a few hours of interrogation.
A senior police officer confirmed the raids, saying: “We are very close to conclude the case. In a day or two you will have the final episode of the high profile crime.”
“Ahmed Umer Shaikh is supposed to be an active member of the proscribed organization Jaish-i-Mohammad and his arrest may lead the police to the recovery of Daniel Pearl,” said a senior police official.
Umer Shaikh’s name emerged as a key suspect following the arrest of three others — Fawad, Salman and Adeel — who, according to the police, confessed to having sent to media two electronic mails attached with the photographs of Mr Pearl. The three had been picked up in Gulistan-i-Jauhar after a strict surveillance by the Crime Investigation Department.
The suspects told the investigators that Umer Shaikh had provided them with Mr Pearl’s photographs and the matter in a floppy. However, they expressed ignorance about the whereabouts of Mr Pearl.
Sources said that Umer Shaikh, a 29-year-old graduate from the London School of Economics, had discreetly entered occupied Kashmir before he was caught by the Indian authorities in mid-1990s. He came out of the Indian prison with Maulana Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar in January 2000 as a result of the deal reached in Afghanistan between the five hijackers of an Indian airliner and the Indian government, which had got 155 passengers freed in exchange.
“On the basis of extensive grilling of the suspects, we believe Umer Shaikh is somewhere in the country. The suspects have given some clues that may lead the police to locate him,” said a senior official.
He declined to indicate the possible hideouts where the police were preparing to conduct nighttime raids for Umer Shaikh.
The police believed that Umer Shaikh had posed himself as Imtiaz Siddique who had already been identified as prime suspect with Hashim Qadeer alias Arif and Mohammed Bashir.
Sources said that Mr Pearl had met Arif in Karachi who referred him to Mohammed Bashir. The police had raided Arif’s house in Bahawalpur where it was revealed that Arif’s real name was Hashim Qadeer, who had a track of criminal record, the sources added.
Hashim’s family claimed that he was dead. However, the family failed to prove their claim, creating doubts over the claim.
Talking to Dawn, an investigating officer identified the 16-year-old boy, picked up in Lahore and brought to Karachi for interrogation, as Haris Aslam. Police believed Aslam was a prankster and had no links with the captors of Mr Pearl. The police, assisted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, were convinced that Aslam should be released.
