KARACHI, June 10: The government denied on Monday that police raided the house of Mehmood Fattani or they picked him up along with three others in connection with the recovery of a decomposed body, believed to be of American journalist Daniel Pearl’s, from a farm on Super Highway.

The Advocate-General Sindh, Raja Qureshi, submitted this before a division bench of the Sindh High Court, comprising Chief Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad and Justice Musheer Alam, when a constitutional petition of Najma Mahmood, wife of Mehmood Fattani, came up for consideration.

Counsel Khawaja Naveed Ahmed had moved the petition on behalf of Najma Mehmood, who had claimed that her husband, his two brothers and their brother-in-law were arrested by armed police in a raid on her family house during the night of 28/29 May.

She had complained that despite the passage of several days neither police had released them, nor produced them in a court of law.

Her husband, her brother-in-law and Mr Ismail were in illegal custody of the Investigating Team of Daniel Pearl case, she had claimed.

The petitioner had claimed that the detainees were kept in the CIA Centre, Saddar, Karachi, under the supervision of Inspector Hameedullah Memon and DSP Syed Abdul Rasheed Shah.

When the matter came up, the AG filed written reply signed by the Senior Superintendent of Police, Investigation-II, in which it was claimed that the respondents had not raided the petitioner’s house. Therefore no question arose for the apprehension of the petitioner about her husband and others.

The respondents have stated that “no one has been arrested, so thee is no ground for their production in the court.”

It was also submitted that nobody was in illegal custody at the Investigation Centre in the Daniel Pearl case as this case had been challaned in an anti-terrorism court at Hyderabad, and the proceedings of the case were almost complete.

The respondents have also stated that police had recovered the dead body of an unknown person for which a case was registered at Gulzar-i-Hijri police station under section 302 of PPC. Police are making efforts to find out whose body it is and “arrest the wanted accused persons in the murder case.”

The respondents also denied that any detainee was kept illegally at the Investigation Centre (the defunct CIA) under the supervision of Inspector Hameedullah Memon, who had been transferred to Gadap. As regards DSP Abdul Rasheed Shah the respondent stated that he had no concern with the crime investigation as he was discharging his duty as DSP Admn, Investigation-II.

On hearing the denial of the respondents, Counsel Naveed Ahmed submitted that petitioner and wives of other detainees were present in the court, and they should be called to make statements. The matter was adjourned to June 12.