HYDERABAD, Oct 27: A youth, Naveed A. Shaikh of Sukkur, was found dead in mysterious circumstances in Al-Amna Plaza in the Cantonment area here on Monday.

Police have detained a girl, a Jordanian national and a number of other suspects as the family of the deceased insisted that Naveed had been murdered.

The body was lying on the plaza’s seventh floor and blood was oozing out from its temple while a loaded pistol and a magazine were lying nearby. Police found a cell phone, a girl’s picture and an identity card of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) of Sukkur in his pocket.

A gunshot was heard about 30 minutes after Naveed went upstairs. Eyewitnesses said that he had died on the spot. According to some reports he had committed suicide.

Police picked up two watchmen of the plaza, Mutalib and Shahid, and one Rehan, an employee of a cellular phone company to glean information about the incident.

According to SHO Tahir Khanzada, Naveed was son of a high court official, Bashir Sheikh, who was posted in the Sukkur bench of the Sindh High Court.

The SHO said that preliminary investigations revealed that the girl in the picture was Shagufta who lived in the same plaza. Shagufta, her brother Shoaib, her sister and her would-be brother-in-law and an Arab national Mohammad had been detained, he said.

“Naveed had talked to Mohammad over phone and asked him to come downstairs but he refused and asked him instead to come upstairs,” said the SHO quoting Mohammad.

Mohammad said when Naveed came up at the seventh floor he peeped from inside and noticed he had a pistol in his hand. Naveed asked him to come out but he refused. On this he threatened to kill himself. “Mohammad told him to go ahead when Naveed threatened to commit suicide,” the SHO said.

He said that according to Shagufta’s statement she used to talk to Naveed over phone. She also said that he used to take sleeping pills and she had started avoiding him but then he threatened to kill himself.

Police claimed that they were informed by Mohammad’s friend that someone had aimed a pistol at Mohammad and asked them to reach there for his rescue.

The SHO said that an FIR would be lodged if the family insisted.

Naveed’s elder brother Waheed Ahmed Sheikh who is assistant director of Intellectual Property Organisation (IPO) Pakistan said over phone that it was a clear case of murder.

“My brother was in Sukkur last night when somebody called him and he left for Hyderabad in a hurry. He was murdered after having been trapped,” he alleged.

He said that the girl and her accomplices had murdered him. “We will certainly lodge an FIR against Jordanian national Mohammad, the girl and their accomplices,” said Waheed.

Self-confessed murderer granted pre-arrest bail

Additional District Judge-III on Monday granted interim pre-arrest bail to a local PML-Q leader Dr. Shafiq Arain for a sum of Rs200,000 in the double murder case of his wife and driver lodged at Hussainabad police station.

The accused who was being represented by Zahoor A. Baloch advocate was himself complainant in the case.

He had confessed to murdering his wife and driver to save his honour.

Arain’s counsel said that his client was being unnecessarily harassed by Hussainabad police who were neither arresting him nor allowing him to move freely.

The double murder took place on Oct 20 in the house of Dr Arain.