KARACHI- Detention of four persons, from whose family farmland decomposed pieces of a human body, suspected to be of American journalist Daniel Pearl, was recovered, has been challenged in the Sindh High Court (SHC). Counsel Khawaja Naveed Ahmed moved the petition on Thursday on behalf of Najma Mehmood, wife of Mehmood Fattani who is one of the four detainees.

The petitioner has claimed that on the night of 28/29 May about 2:00 a.m a big contingent of police armed with sophisticated weapons had raided her house and had taken with them her husband and his two brothers, Yasin and Afzal, and their brother-in-law Ismail.

It is her contention that ten days have passed but until now neither police had released them, nor have they produced them in a court of law, in spite of repeated requests by her and the wives of the other detainees and the mother- in-law of the petitioner.

According to the petitioner, who belongs to the Memon community, she has been told that the dead body, believed to be of Daniel Pearl, has been recovered from the lands belonging to her husband’s family. Her husband and the other detainees are in illegal custody of the investigation team of the Daniel Pearl’s case, the petitioner has claimed.

The petitioner and the wives of other detainees and her mother-in-law have not been allowed to meet them. They have been kept in the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) Centre, Saddar, Karachi, under the supervision of Inspector Hameedullah Memon and Deputy Superintendent Police (DSP) Syed Abdul Rasheed Shah, the petitioner has claimed.

It is her case that she and the detainees are entitled to know the grounds of their detention, place of their detention and material against them in the hands of the detaining authority. By denying them this information, their fundamental rights, granted by the constitution, have been denied by the respondents.

The petitioner has claimed that neither she nor any member of her family has any concern with the Daniel Pearl case, and their detention for the past ten days in police custody is illegal. The petitioner has prayed the court for declaring the detention of her husband and of the other detainees’ illegal and order their production in the court and also their release.

She has also prayed for registering a case of illegal detention against the irresponsible police officers and grant of compensation to the detainees.

On May 17, police had exhumed ten pieces of a decomposed human body in a farm off Super Highway, which were believed to be the remains of the slaughtered American journalist, Daniel Pearl. The recovered pieces were sent for DNA tests, result of which have not yet been disclosed.

Source: Dawn
Date:6/7/2002