22 July 2004	Thursday	04 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

HYDERABAD, July 21: The father of Salman Saqib, one of the four convicts in the Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder case, has said that his ailing son was not being provided proper medical treatment in jail.

Talking to journalists at the press club here on Tuesday, Abdul Rauf said for the last two months Salman had been urinating blood yet he had not been shifted to hospital.

Sheikh Aslam, the brother of another convict Sheikh Adil, was also present on the occasion. Mr Rauf said a doctor had come from Karachi to see his condition and expressed surprise as to why he had not been shifted to hospital.

He said he had sent an application to prison authorities, seeking Salman's treatment in hospital but in vain. He warned that if any harm came to his son then he would file a murder case against prison authorities. He said he would also file an application before the court for shifting him from Hyderabad to Karachi prison.

He informed that the hearing of convicts' appeal was fixed for July 28 in the Sindh High Court, Karachi. Jail Superintendent Nusrat Mangan told this correspondent that a physician and surgeon had been called from the Civil Hospital, Hyderabad, and they would examine Salman Saqib.

He said the patient was suffering from the UTI infection. He maintained that given the nature of high profile case the patient could not be shifted to the hospital. Mr Mangan said that in case doctors recommended his shifting then the higher authorities would be approached for his shifting.

ATC judge Syed Ali Ashraf Shah had awarded capital punishment to Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life imprisonment to Salman Saqib, Fahad Naseem and Sheikh Adil on July 15, 2002.

They were also ordered to pay a fine of Rs500,000 each and in case of default of payment of fine, they would have to undergo 5- years of imprisonment also. Sheikh Omar had been shifted to Islamabad on July 18 this year from the central prison under directives of the federal interior ministry and had not been brought back.

PROTEST: Heirs of a road accident victim, Ali Mohammad Chalgari, staged a demonstration inside the civil hospital Hyderabad, claiming that he had died due to negligence of doctors on Tuesday. The relatives claimed that he was brought to the hospital in a critical condition and he was not provided medical treatment on time.