Police said on Tuesday that they arrested two suspected militants wanted in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl. Attaur Rehman and Faisal Bhatti were arrested on Monday in Kashmor, a town northeast of Karachi, said Saghir Mugheri, an area police officer. However, a lawyer for the menÂ’s families said they were picked up by security agencies in 2003 and have been secretly held in custody since then.Mugheri said both men were members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant organisation linked to Al Qaida. A senior detective on the team investigating PearlÂ’s case said Rehman is suspected of leading the gang that kidnapped Pearl in Karachi in 2002. Rehman, also known as Naim Bukhari, supervised the reporterÂ’s detention in a shack for several days before he was killed, said the detective, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said both suspects were also involved in the 1998 murder of two Iranian engineers in Karachi, the killing of two Shiite Muslim lawyers in 2000, and an unsuccessful attempt to release a fellow militant from a prison van in 1998 that left two guards dead.
Mugheri said police seized the pair in a car traveling toward Balochistan and that weapons and explosives were found in the vehicle. He said they would be transferred to Karachi for further investigation. However, Maqboolur Rehman, a human rights lawyer, claimed the two suspects had been in custody since being seized from Karachi in 2003. He dismissed the announcement of their arrest as an attempt to conceal their long confinement without trial or contact with their families, reported the Associated Press.