Detained Or Not?: Man acquitted in Pearl case missing

HYDERABAD: The whereabouts of an acquitted suspect in the kidnapping and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl has become a puzzle. After his exoneration from the case by the Anti-Terrorism Court in Hyderabad on October 23, 2014, Qari Hashim Shah was detained under Maintenance of Public Order for 90 days. However, that period lapsed on January 19. At the hearing in the Sindh High Court on Tuesday, Central Jail Hyderabad’s superintendent Aijaz Hyder informed claimed that Hashim was released from the prison on January 19, producing a gate pass as evidence. But the petitioner Syed Khalid Imran Shah, suspect’s brother, objected to the evidence and pointed out the pass lacked signature of Hashim. The four convicts of the Pearl case are also imprisoned in the central jail since their conviction in 2002.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2015.