ISLAMABAD, June 13: Police on Wednesday added section 316 of the PPC to the FIR registered against former minister of state for communications Mohammad Shahid Jamil Qureshi, so far facing charges of illegally detaining Kafila Siddiqui, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin who died on Saturday night, and enlarged the scope of investigation, sources told Dawn.
The section deals with ‘Qatl Shibhi-Amd’. “Whoever commits Qatl Shibhi-i-Amd shall be liable to diyat and may also be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 14 years as tazir,” it states.
According to data obtained form the National Highway and Motorway Police, Mr Qureshi in his official Honda car entered Motorway (M-2) at around 11.30pm, but returned from Kalarkahar at around 1.40am, the sources said. Mr Qureshi straightaway went to the Pakistan Institute Medical Sciences where he dropped Kafila Siddiqui, who was pronounced dead by doctors, the sources added. It is not clear why was Mr Qureshi going towards Lahore.
Earlier, the former minister faced sections 344 and 346 of PPC. Section 344 deals with wrongful confinement for 10 or more days, which is punishable with imprisonment of up to three years and a fine. Section 346 deals with wrongful confinement in secret, which is punishable with up to two years in jail, in addition to another punishment.
Meanwhile, a local court on Wednesday granted an interim pre-arrest bail to the former minister. The bail application will be taken up at the next hearing.
Experts said the slow pace of investigations into the case allowed Mr Qureshi to get the interim bail.
The court of additional sessions judge Mirza Nisar Baig granted Mr Qureshi the interim bail till June 18 against a surety bond of Rs100,000, said Mr Qureshi’s counsel Main Abdul Rauf.
Ms Siddiqui had been brought to the emergency ward of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences at 2.07am by the former minister, who reportedly said he had found the woman lying on the floor of her room at around 10:30pm. According to Mr Qureshi, doctors had told him that Ms Siddiqui had died an hour before she was brought to the hospital. If she had been brought to the hospital after 2am, she must have died at around 1am, the sources said. The body had been shifted to the mortuary at around 6:30am, which raised the question as to why had the body been kept in the emergency ward for more than four hours, they said. Another mystery is that police registered a case two days after the incident and did not arrest the accused.
Ms Siddiqui’s husband Salman Qaiser, brother Mustafa Qayyum and sister Sheena Siddiqui met the medico-legal officer and some senior doctors of Pims and complained that necessary formalities had not been fulfilled during the autopsy, the sources said.
The sources said the family members were trying to have another autopsy conducted by a team of Canadian doctors.
Latafat Ali Siddiqui adds from Toronto: Shahid Jamil Qureshi is listed as a co-director of Kafila Siddiqui’s companies in Ontario, said a newspaper report.
However, in an interview with Canada’s leading newspaper, The Globe and Mail, Mr Qureshi denied that he and Ms Siddiqui were business partners. “Yet Canadian corporate records show that a person with the same name is listed as a co-director, along with Ms Siddiqui, of two Ontario-based companies,” the newspaper said.
Mr Qureshi said that during a visit to Toronto he had stayed in Ms Siddiqui’s home, but they were not business partners. The newspaper said Ms Siddiqui was listed as the chair and CEO of the Global Reach International Business Development Inc. Canada, an event management company. The company’s website no longer exists, although a 2005 copy of the site describes Ms Siddiqui as having 13 years of sales and marketing experience.
Ms Siddiqui and her husband are also listed as directors of another company Orients Worldwide Consultants Inc. The company’s address is the same as the couple’s Richmond Hill home address. Another two companies, Orients Worldwide Legal Services Inc. and Orients Worldwide Group of Companies Ltd., are also listed at the same address. The other named director is “M. Shahid Jamil Qureshi.” On corporate records, Mr Qureshi’s address is that of the Kafila Siddiqui family home in Richmond Hill, 20 kilometres north of Toronto.
Mr Qureshi also denied suggestions that the two were romantically involved. “She (Kafila) was very religious,” he said, “and, in fact, during the last few months she was in such a deep depression that she had stopped eating and drinking, and only consumed dates and aab-i-zamzam.”
Mr Qureshi said the responsibility for Ms Siddiqui’s death lies with her husband and family.
