HYDERABAD, Aug 31: Three convicts of the Daniel Pearl case, including Omer Shaikh, observed a hunger strike for several hours in Hyderabad Central Jail here on Friday.

They called the hunger strike off on Saturday after the mother of one of them persuaded them to do so.

The fourth convict, Syed Salman Saqib, did not join the hunger strike as his condition was serious, informed jail sources said.

According to the sources, the three convicts, Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh, Sheikh Adil and Fahad Naseem, went on hunger strike on Friday evening to protest their conviction and imprisonment in the case despite the arrest of “real culprits”.

The three convicts handed over their hand written statements to the jail superintendent, in which they offered the reason for their hunger strike.

In his statement Adil said: “I am observing hunger strike because Attaur Rehman alias Naeem Bukhari, Fazal Kareem and another man have been arrested on the charges of kidnapping and killing the US journalist, Daniel Pearl.”

He stated that his counsel had told him that the police and the government were not bringing the arrests of the “real culprits” on record because it could have led to the acquittal of the three convicts and quashment of the case against them.

On Saturday the mother and paternal aunt of Naseem met and persuaded him to end their hunger strike and leave everything to God.

Naseem’s mother told this scribe at the jail that the condition of Saqib was serious. She said that she was asked by the jail administration to tell Saqib’s father about his condition.

Saqib had been operated upon on 17 occasions and he had been under treatment at the Agha Khan Hospital, Karachi.

His application for their transfer to Karachi is still pending with the home department, Sindh.

The jail administration has sent a report to the Sindh IG, prisons, and home department about the hunger strike.

The ATC Judge, Syed Ali Ashraf Shah, awarded death sentence to Omer Sheikh and life imprisonment to Saqib, Naseem and Adil in Pearl case on July 15 following an inside trial at the Hyderabad jail.