Multan, May 29: An Islamic militant accused of helping to plan the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was arrested at a bus station in central Pakistan today, police said.
The suspect, Qari Abdul Hai, who allegedly had close ties
with the Taliban, is the chief of a banned militant group
condemned by the United States as a terrorist organisation,
police said. The group has been accused many bus and church
bombings in Pakistan.
Most of the group's leaders have either been arrested,
killed in police confrontations or gone underground. Its
former chief, Riaz Basra, was killed in May 2002 in a
shootout with police in a village in the eastern province of
Punjab.
Malik said there was a USD 34,485 reward for Hai's arrest
and that he had been linked to the murders of many Shiite
Muslims in different parts of the country in recent years.
Hai had close links with the former Taliban regime in
Afghanistan, Malik said.
Bureau Report
