KARACHI, Feb 7: Law enforcement agencies are getting closer to the culprits who had kidnapped US journalist Daniel Pearl some two weeks ago in the city.

“Police investigators are getting closer to the suspects, who are keeping Daniel Pearl in illegal detention and people will hear a good news soon,” the provincial police chief Syed Kamal Shah told Dawn after he held a meeting with senior police officials at DIG Karachi (Operation) office on Thursday night.

He said the progress was there and investigation was under way to recover Daniel Pearl. About the arrest of other three suspects — Mohammed Bashir, Hashim Qadeer and Imtiaz Siddique — the provincial police chief said none of them had been arrested so far. He said Imtiaz Siddique is using a fake identity and no such person exists.

However, the sources said Imtiaz Siddique was actually Ahmed Umer Shaikh.

Sindh Governor Mohammedmian Soomro, while talking to journalists at a hotel on Thursday after the corporate excellence awards 2000 ceremony of the Management Association of Pakistan, said: “We are very hopeful about recovering Pearl ...maybe in a day or two, or even earlier, but we cannot fix a timeframe.” However, he added: “Progress is there but we are moving cautiously so as not to jeopardise the safety and security of the journalist.”

Earlier, the Sindh Home Secretary Mukhtar Ahmed, while talking to AFP said: “We will recover him (Daniel) soon, maybe within days or it could be even sooner.”

“We are trying to put together some concrete leads to trace the whereabouts of the chief suspect (Omar) but there has been no luck so far,” AFP quoted one police investigator as saying.

But another investigator said: “The case has now entered a crucial phase and at this stage we cannot give you details except that we are making progress.”

The police had picked up Fahad, Salman and Adil from Gulistan- i-Johar on Tuesday, who had named Ahmed Umer Shaikh as a key suspect in the high-profile kidnapping. They told the police that Ahmed Umer had ordered them to send two electronic messages along with photographs, provided by him, to the media.

The police started a hunt for Umer Shaikh, and conducted raids at his Lahore residence.