KARACHI, June 26: A week after the reported arrest of Abdul Rehman alias Rehman Dakait in a posh area of Quetta, authorities are still tight-lipped over the whereabouts of the hig-profile gangster wanted in as many as 200 criminal cases in Sindh and Balochistan.

Similarly none of the senior police officials have come on record to confirm the arrest. When a senior police official was contacted by Dawn on Monday for his version, he neither confirmed nor denied the arrest. Requesting not to be named, he said he hoped that the confusion would clear soon.

Rehman Dakait, who is usually well-guarded by his comrades, was arrested in the small hours of June 18 in a bungalow in Quetta without a shot being fired. Making a run for his life, Rehman reportedly broke his foot while scaling a wall.

Some quarters are of the opinion that Rehman was enjoying official protection that is the apparent reason that he was living without his armed comrades.

A driver of a senior functionary of the Balochistan government was also detained with Rehman on June 18, sources said. However, his whereabouts are also not known.

Ironically, at a stage when authorities have not even confirmed the arrest, police officials who took part in the raid have completed their paperwork, updating their personal files for their promotions. They are also contending for a bounty of half a million rupees.

In all, three police parties, SHO of the Sachal police station Wasif Qureshi, who had the information of Rehman’s whereabouts, the Lyari Task Force and the Quetta police, who helped the teams of Karachi police, took part in raid to arrest Rehman.

Following his arrest, Rehman asked his captors to kill him, otherwise they would regret their decision. I have escaped in the past and will do the same again, Rehman told us, said a police officer who had taken part in the operation.

Soon after his landing at the Karachi airport, Rehman was handed over to staff of intelligence agencies, who reportedly took him to Islamabad.

Since his escape while being taken to court for a hearing in 1997, Rehman went under ground and soon surfaced and regrouped his gang in Hub, Balochistan.

On June 23, Ms Zubeda, maternal aunt of Rehman, submitted before the Sindh High Court that Rehman was arrested in Quetta on June 18 with his brother-in-law, Wajid, daughter Atiqa, 11, and son Atique, 8, and he was being illegally detained by law enforcement agencies.

The petitioner’s counsel Omer Sial submitted that his client (Rehman) was shifted to an undisclosed location in Islamabad by the LEA without producing him before any court of law and obtaining his remand.

Subsequently, the SHC issued notices to the secretary for interior, the home minister of Sindh and the IG Sindh for appearing before the bench on June 29.