Front Page
Scribe's kidnapper phoned Indian officials: Sattar
By B. Muralidhar Reddy
ISLAMABAD, FEB. 1. The Pakistan Foreign Minister, Abdul Sattar, has said that the main suspect in the kidnapping of the American reporter, Daniel Pearl, had called three Indian Government officials on his mobile phone.
Mr. Sattar was quoted as saying in Berlin, on his way to Munich to participate in a conference on security, that the alleged kidnapper ``had made a number of foreign calls and included among the numbers that he had called in India were a number of persons who occupied certain important positions in the Indian Government''.
``That is all we know. We are not alleging that this person was working in complicity with somebody in India. But I think this fact should be known to all persons interested.''
The Press Secretary to the Pakistan President, Rashid Quereshi, had claimed that there was an Indian angle to the case and that the Government would come out with the details at the appropriate time.
Meanwhile, the English daily, The News, claimed that Syed Mubarak Ali Gilani - who turned himself over to the police on Wednesday - had told interrogators that he had provided ``invaluable services'' to the security services.
The paper, in a report from Karachi, said that Gilani had given the names of a number of serving and retired security officials for an independent verification of his claims.
During his interrogation in Rawalpindi on Wednesday, Gilani made several requests to senior police officials that he be allowed to make calls to his contacts in the Government.
The News said Gilani surprised the investigators by offering to prove that his disciples in the United States sent about half-a-million dollars every year - in the form of cash and wire transfers - for religious activities in Pakistan.
The 65-year-old Gilani said that he had invested a part of the money in real estate in the NWFP and Punjab and that the estimated value of his commercial and agricultural holdings was about Rs. 1 billion.
India asks for names
NEW DELHI, FEB. 1. India today dared Pakistan to disclose the names of Indian officials who it claimed had maintained telephonic links with the abductors of Daniel Pearl. ``Let them (Pakistan) give the names'' of the officials, a spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs said. She said that Pakistan had not sent any official communication in this regard. - UNI
Will do everything,says Bush
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
NEW YORK, FEB. 1. The U.S. President, George W. Bush, has said that his country would continue to do everything it could to rescue the reporter of The Wall Street Journal; and that the Government of Pakistan was as ``deeply concerned'' as that of the U.S.
``We are working with the Pakistan Government to chase down any leads possible _ for example, trying to follow the trail of the e-mails that have been sent for the sole purpose of saving this man, of finding him and rescuing him,'' he said.
The President said that according to his information Islamabad was not familiar with the group holding the journal reporter, Daniel Pearl.
On Thursday, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said the Governments of Pakistan and the U.S. were working to free Mr. Pearl but ruled out accepting the kidnapping group's demand that Pakistani prisoners taken during the Afghan campaign be set free.
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Front Page
|
