HYDERABAD, May 1: Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, along with three other accused will be shifted to the Hyderabad Central Jail sometime between Thursday and Friday amidst reports that Mr Sheikh’s counsel, Abdul Waheed Katpar, is moving the Supreme Court against the order of a division bench of the Sindh High Court, changing the venue of the trial from the Karachi prison to the Hyderabad jail, a jail official told this correspondent.

The Sindh High Court has fixed the hearing of the case for May 3.

It may be recalled that Mr Sheikh is an accused in the kidnapping-cum-murder case of American journalist Daniel Pearl.

The official said that the Sindh Inspector General of Prisons, Brigadier Nisar Mehar along with Additional Home Secretary Iqbal Deewan visited the Central Jail on Wednesday and inspected the cells where the four accused were to be confined following their shifting from Karachi.

The accused persons would be kept in different cells of B-class ward, it was learnt.

The jail department chief has not received any directives from the Sindh Government or the provincial home department requiring him to hand over custody of all the four accused to the Karachi police for their transportation to Hyderabad.

For security reasons the official refused to disclose the exact time when the accused will be brought from Karachi.

The four accused are Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh alias Muzzafar Farooq, Shaikh M. Adil, Salman Saqib, and Fahad Nasim.

Six of the seven absconders who had been declared proclaimed offenders are Amjad Hussain Farooqi alias Haider Farooqi alias Hasan, Asif alias Qasim, Hashim, Qari Abdul Qadeer, Hasan alias Ahmed Bhai, and Imtiaz Siddiqui. The name of the seventh could not be ascertained.