ISLAMABAD, June 12: Minister of State for Communications Mohammad Shahid Jamil Qureshi, facing charges of illegally detaining Kafila Siddiqui, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin who died under mysterious circumstances last Saturday night, resigned from the cabinet on Tuesday.

However, his name has not been placed on the exit control list despite a request made by police.

“I resigned voluntarily because I do not want to give an impression that I’m influencing the investigation process,” said Mr Qureshi.

Sources said Mr Qureshi submitted the resignation letter in the Prime Minister’s Chamber on Tuesday evening, and it was immediately accepted.

At a weekly briefing on law and order, interior ministry’s spokesman Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema said police had taken 10 people into custody. “We cannot arrest the minister till it is proved that it was not a natural death and the woman had been killed,” he added.

He said that apparently there was no sign of torture on the woman’s body, therefore it was premature to say if it was a murder. “But we have sent samples of the stuff taken from her stomach for chemical analysis to know the cause of her death.”

Soon after resigning, Mr Qureshi addressed a press conference where he denied having been forced to resign by the prime minister.

The press conference was arranged by the Press Information Department and press information officer Chaudhry Abdul Rasheed accompanied Mr Qureshi.

Answering a question about his presence in the house rented out in the name of Kafila Siddiqui, he said: “I shared a portion of the house with her to assist her monetarily and it was my routine that whenever I came to the house I enquired after her health.” Mr Qureshi said the woman was like his sister and she was very religious.

Mr Qureshi denied that soon after the incident he had gone to the house of Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain carrying a briefcase containing some clothes to seek protection and that he had resigned after Mr Hussain’s assurance. “He is my leader and I went to his house to meet him.”

Meanwhile, Kafila Siddiqui’s husband Salman Qaiser, brother Mustafa Qayyum, sister Shaheena and other relatives have arrived in Islamabad.

They met senior police officers, including SSP Zafar Iqbal, and recorded their statements.

The sources said the woman was two months pregnant, but the SSP said it could not be confirmed before police received the chemical examiner’s report.

He said the dress the woman was wearing at the time of her death had been sent for forensic tests. Samples of vomit collected from the scene had been sent to Lahore for chemical analysis, he added.

On Tuesday morning, magistrate Liaquat Abbasi and investigation officers searched the house where the woman had died. They collected some belongings of the woman, including three mobile phones, a laptop and a computer, the SSP said.

Those picked up by police for interrogation include Mr Qureshi’s servants and official staff. Police were investigating recent activities of Mr Qureshi, the sources said.

SSP Zafar Iqbal, SP Ashfaq Ahmad, and ASP, Shalimar area, Muqaddas Haider have interrogated 11 people – five belonging to the Ministry of Communications and six to the Motorway Police.

The sources said investigators had contacted cellphone service providers for details about mobile numbers of Mr Qureshi and Ms Siddiqui. Investigators, they added, had also contacted banks for account details of the two.

The National Highway and Motorway Police have been asked to provide entry and exit data of Mr Qureshi’s movements.

The sources said necessary formalities had not been fulfilled during the autopsy. The hair of the woman had not been sent to the chemical examiner in Lahore which would have determined if she had been poisoned. The woman was foaming at the mouth which raised the suspicion that she might have been poisoned, the sources said.

Mustafa Qayyum, a brother of Kafila, told Dawn that his brother-in-law Salman Qaiser had visited the Canadian High Commission to assert that police should investigate on “correct lines”.

He demanded that a “genuine” post-mortem report should be made public.

He said police were responsible for her sister’s death because they had failed to act on a complaint by Mr Qaiser.

Latafat Ali Siddiqui adds from Toronto: Nathalie Deschenes, a spokesperson for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said in Ottawa on Tuesday that the “Canadian police are seeking information from authorities in Pakistan through Interpol about Kafila’s death”.

A spokesman for Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, Bernard Nguyen, said the department had been notified of Kafila’s death, but he declined to provide specific information.

According to information made available here, Mr Qaiser, a resident of Richmond Hill, 20 kilometres north of Toronto, had told local police several months ago that his wife had gone missing in Pakistan.

A York Regional Police spokesperson confirmed here on Tuesday that Mr Qaiser had filed a missing person’s report for his wife. “The missing person’s report was followed up and led us to make a request through Interpol,” she said.Kafila, 40, was very popular in social and political circles of Greater Toronto Area. She was master of ceremonies at several social functions held in Toronto, Mississauga and the town of Markham. She interviewed several Canadian political personalities on radio and television here.

Lately, she organised in Toronto an international conference on trade and economy. Minister Jamil Qureshi had come from Islamabad to attend the conference.