06 June 2004	Sunday	17 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

MULTAN, June 5: The district police found no clue to the killers of the British teacher till late Saturday night. Allen Cox, 60, was murdered by some assailants on Thursday night in a house he had been living on rent near the busiest Ghanta Ghar Chowk for the last six years. Previously, he used to live at Gulgasht Colony near the LaSalle Public School.

Mostly residing in Multan during the last 13 years, Allen used to conduct classes of spoken English at his home for the local students and the people who aspired to get immigration visas for the UK or other European countries. He also offered services to the locals in the processing of the immigration documents.

He had recently applied to the British Council's education and examination wing in Multan to be hired as an examiner for various tests, including IELTS, the council supervises across the country.

Forensic experts at the Nishter Medical College and Hospital observed in the postmortem that Allen was vigorously stabbed by the assailants before being fired at twice. He had 16 multiple wounds on various parts of the body.

Now the police are learnt to have shifted the focus of their investigation to some kind of personal enmity from the earlier assumption of a terrorist attack on a foreigner. Although the police had not formally started investigation so far, sources claimed that 50 people had been detained for interrogation.

Most of those held were the present and former students of the deceased. Besides, some residents of the locality, where Allen used to live at the time of his death, had also been detained to get any lead, DPO Hamid Mukhtar Gondal told Dawn.

He said the police had registered a case against three of the suspects while pencil sketch of one of them had also been prepared with the help of eyewitnesses. He said the assailants were between 22 and 25 years.

"The age factor and the manner in which the British teacher was murdered also suggest that some of his students can be involved in the gruesome act," he said, adding there were some weird reports about the character of the foreigner.

Answering a question, he said, the UK was among the countries whose nationals were exempted from the condition of having registered with the Pakistani authorities during their stay in the country.

He said if there had ever been any information about Allen with the local police it would be 13-year-old now buried under the heaps of files. There were 154 foreigners registered with the local police, 17 of them Indians, he added.

A police source said the law enforcers were also in search of Tariq Sardar, who once remained very close to Allen. He said at one stage Allen had helped Tariq settle in the UK, but later differences cropped up between them.

The source said Tariq was subsequently deported from the UK to Pakistan and there were reports that Tariq's family had protested this issue with Allen.

The police have taken into custody some accessories that were in the personal use of the deceased, including his cell phone and a laptop.

Investigators revealed that his laptop contained pictures of 100 boys, including foreigners, besides his photographs in his birthday suit. They suspected Allen to be a homosexual, also claiming that they had recorded his voice messages that indicated his inclination towards this. According to a policeman, his laptop password was 'viagra.'

The investigators said one of his students, Ali Imran, had been held for interrogation. They said Allen had gave Imran a motorcycle.

Meanwhile, the authorities at the British Embassy in Pakistan have reportedly contacted the police to inquire about the facilities at the local mortuary about protection of the body from decomposition for five to six days.

The Multan DPO said they did not know when the British Embassy or Allen's relatives would take his body.