The Sindh High Court on Wednesday issued notices to law officers on a plea challenging the provincial government’s second notification for extending the confinement of four men acquitted in Daniel Pearl murder case. A two-member bench, comprising Justice Muhammad IqbalKalhoro and Justice ShamsuddinAbbasi, issued notices to the Sindh advocate general and prosecutor general, seeking their response on August 20. The petitioner’s counsel maintained that despite the acquittal of Omar Saeed, FahadNaseem, Salman Saqib and Shaikh Mohammad, the Sindh government continued to detain them under Section 11-EEE of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. Their detention was extended for three more months through a notification after the completion of their confinement period on July 1, he added. The counsel maintained that the accused have been confined for 20 years and it was illegal to keep them confined despite their acquittal. He pleaded to the court to nullify the notification for the extension of confinement period and issue directions for the release of the accused. Last month, the Sindh home department had extended the detention order of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the prime suspect in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and three other suspects for another three months, fearing that they might engage in a terrorist activity after their release. On April 2 this year, the SHC had commuted the death sentence of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh – the man convicted of kidnapping and murdering American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 – to a seven-year sentence. The SHC had also acquitted three others who had been awarded life imprisonment in the case. The order came almost two decades after they were found guilty and subsequently jailed.
