THATTA, April 21: Fazal Karim, son of Allah Bakhsh, was remanded in the judicial custody and was sent to the central prison, Hyderabad, after the Jhoke Sharif police presented his final challan for a narcotics case before the civil judge of Mirpur Bathoro, Faiz Mohammad Bhatti.

The man was picked up in May 2002 from Karachi for being allegedly involved in the Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder case.

Jhoke Sharif police station SHO Gul Munir produced the accused in the court amid tight security. The SHO had also brought a briefcase containing the evidence, five kilogrames of hashish allegedly recovered from the possession of the accused.

When the judge inquired as to why Karim had been brought with his face covered by a piece of cloth, the SHO replied that photographs were “un-Islamic.”

The police had interrogated him for five days.

He was initially remanded in the police custody by the district and sessions judge, Thatta, and subsequently the police had obtained his three-day-long remand from the court of the civil judge, Mirpur Bathoro.

The accused was earlier brought to the court of the judicial magistrate, Thatta, Ms Abida Parveen, after the expiry of his three-day remand, which had been granted in a Datsun pick-up snatching case in the jurisdiction of the Ghorabari police station.

The police had informed the court that the accused was being released under Section 497 CrPC following an inquiry.

Fazal Karim had been arrested by the CIA police from Karachi on May 14, 2002, in the Pearl kidnapping and murder case and since then he had been held incommunicado.

His parents had filed a habeas corpus petition in the Sindh High Court, where the DIG, Karachi, had stated that Karim was not in police custody.

The petition was later withdrawn.

However, another petition had been filed in the SHC, praying for the recovery of Fazal Karim. The petition was still pending in the superior court.

The petitioner had stated that he had come to know that Karim was detained at the Bannu police station. He had accordingly informed the sessions judge, Thatta, who had directed civil judge to conduct a raid at police station.

Subsequently, the civil judge, Mirpur Bathoro, Faiz Mohammad Bhatti, had found Fazal Karim detained at the police station but the SHO, Bannu police station, had refused to release him.

He (the SHO) had later produced him in a civil court, seeking his remand in the hashish case.

Our Hyderabad correspondent adds: Fazal Karim was being kept in the security ward of the central prison, along with other under-trial prisoners, a jail official confirmed. He had arrived here in the evening, he said.

The official said that he was isolated from other convicts of the Pearl case, including Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh, Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Adil Sheikh, who were being kept in different cells in the security ward.