A judicial magistrate on Thursday granted Quetta police 10-day physical remand of Balochistan Communication and Works Minister Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran, who was arrested a day earlier on charges of killing three persons.

Bullet-riddled bodies of a woman and her two sons were found from a well near the minister’s residence in the Barkhan area late on Monday night.

At the time, Khan Muhammad Marri, a citizen, alleged that the bodies were of his wife and two sons. He had also claimed that his wife and sons were being held in Khetran’s private jail, adding that five more of his children, including his 13-year-old daughter, were still languishing there.

However, confusion persists on the identity of the victims after a coroner on Wednesday found that the female victim — initially identified by the police as Marri’s wife Gran Naz, who is in her 40s — was an as yet unidentified woman aged around 18.

On Thursday, the minister was presented in court amid tight security. Footage aired on television showed Khetran — who has termed the entire incident as “propaganda created to tarnish his political repute” — flashing a peace sign to the reporters.

During the hearing, police requested the judicial magistrate to grant 10-day physical remand of the minister, which was subsequently accepted.

Victims’ father seeks to meet rescued family members to ‘verify identities’

Sources told Dawn late on Wednesday night that levies personnel had recovered three members of Khan Muhammad Marri’s family, including his wife and two children.

Sources said that Granaz, her 17-year-old daughter Farzana and son Abdul Sattar had been recovered from an area near the border of Duki and Barkhan, but two of Marri’s children had yet to be found.

Sources said levies officials conducted raids on a tip-off at an isolated place and recovered the trio. “The woman and her two children have been handed over to the commissioner Zhob,” the source said, adding that they would be reunited with their family after completing legal formalities.

While speaking at a protest being staged by Marri tribesmen which entered its third day in Quetta’s Red Zone on Thursday, Marri — the father of seven — confirmed that the two males that were found in the well along with the woman were his sons. He added that two of his children are still missing.

At the protest, Marri also corroborated the version of the police surgeon, saying his two children had been murdered. He blamed Khetran for the crime.

He said the protest would continue until the recovered people were brought to him and justice was meted out.

The law enforcers galvanised into action after protests erupted across the province demanding the recovery of captives allegedly held by the minister at his private jail.