Police believe Pearl is still alive | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Police believe Pearl is still alive

KARACHI- The Police said on Thursday that they believed the kidnapped US reporter Daniel Pearl was still alive, but played down talk they were close to finding his abductors.

Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl, 38, disappeared in the southern city of Karachi on January 23 as he tried to contact radical Islamic groups, and trace links between Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network and alleged shoe-bomber Richard Reid.

The kidnappers said that Pearl was being kept in “inhumane” conditions to protest the treatment of the US prisoners in Cuba.

Police said they had made another arrest in the capital Islamabad on Thursday in the hunt for Pearl’s kidnappers, but said the investigations could easily drag on.

“It could take an hour, a day, maybe a week,” said a senior member of the investigation team. “We don’t know yet.”

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar told a news conference progress was being made in efforts to crack the case.

“No effort, whatsoever, is being spared for it to come to a quick conclusion,” he said. “I can also say there is progress. I cannot put a time limit…but we are hopeful and we will continue to make all efforts to do it as quickly as possible.”

Despite not having heard anything from Pearl’s abductors for mom than a week, police said they were hopeful the US reporter was still alive somewhere in Pakistan. “We have no reason to believe he is dead,” a senior investigator told Reuters.

Source: Business Recorder
Date:2/8/2002