ISLAMABAD, Feb 22: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has condemned the murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl.

“Targeting innocent civilians in a conflict is most reprehensible”, a party spokesperson said in a statement on Friday.

Meanwhile, the PPP chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, has also written a condolence letter to the wife of the late Pearl.

Mr Pearl was kidnapped on January 23. British-born Ahmed Omar Shaikh, a key suspect, claimed in the court that the journalist was dead. However, police authorities refused to believe, saying until a body was found, they assumed he was alive.

The death of the journalist was confirmed in an official handout Friday morning, saying the Sindh home department had received a video tape showing the body of the abducted journalist. “The PPP is concerned that the kidnapping and murder of Danny Pearl can be a sign of the worse to come.”

The spokesman noted that the militants in Afghanistan, and, perhaps, even in Kashmir, were now returning to Pakistan and could be “regrouping and re-organizing their activities by making the country focus of actions to be carried out”.

He said the party was perturbed by the thought that the military regime was unable to maintain domestic stability. He also raised concerns over the manner in which the government handled the Pearl case.

“It was offensive that the custody of the prime suspect, Shaikh Omar, who turned himself in five days before authorities admitted they had him, was kept a secret with a view to politically exploiting it for the visit of Gen Musharraf to Washington”.