BAHAWALPUR, Feb 18: The district police have failed to glean any solid evidence against killers of five members of a family despite the passage of a week.

Five members of the family of Mukhtar Ahmad, who was in Saudi Arabia, were allegedly strangled on Friday last at their house at Nazirabad Colony in mysterious circumstances during the night.

After the arrival of Mukhtar Ahmad from Saudi Arabia, the police officials claimed to have traced the crime. However, in fact, the murderers have yet to be arrested. Meanwhile, a police party which had been sent to Karachi two days ago has returned with the suspect whose name, however, is being kept secret.

A police source told Dawn that during preliminary interrogation, the police had gleaned valuable information from the suspect that might lead to arrest of other culprits. Two other suspects are already in the custody of the police, who had held them immediately after the incident.

Meanwhile, sources confided to Dawn that the motive behind the murder could be a rape attempt on Mukhtar's wife. When contacted, DPO Arif Nawaz told this correspondent that the police were close to the clue and two investigations teams had been working on the case.

He said one of the suspects, who was arrested from Karachi, was wanted by the police. It may be mentioned here that two nephews of Mukhtar and their friend were being quizzed on suspicion.

CONSTRUCTION: Expressing displeasure over delay in construction work on uplift schemes here, CM's adviser and District Steering Committee chairman Makhdoom Syed Iftikhar Hassan Gilani has warned the official of the C&W department to complete the projects in time.

He directed them to speed up the execution of the government works. The meeting, which was chaired by Mr Gilani, approved 45 uplift schemes costing over Rs20 million.