Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran, the Balochistan Minister of Communication and Works who had been detained a day earlier on suspicion of killing three people, was sent on a 10-day physical remand by a magistrate on Thursday in Quetta.
Bullet-riddled bodies of a woman and her two sons were found from a well near the minister’s residence in the Barkhan area late on Monday night.
Khan Muhammad Marri, a local resident at the time, said the bodies belonged to his wife and two boys. Additionally, he had stated that his wife and boys were being detained at Khetran’s private prison, and that five additional members of his family, including his daughter, 13, were still being imprisoned there.
However, mystery still surrounds the victims’ identities after a coroner determined on Wednesday that the female victim, who had been initially named by the police as Gran Naz, Marri’s wife, who is in her 40s, was actually an unidentified woman of roughly 18 years old.
The minister was appeared in court on Thursday under heavy security. Television footage showed Khetran giving the reporters a peace sign while claiming that the entire affair was “propaganda created to ruin his political repute.”
During the hearing, police requested the judicial magistrate to grant 10-day physical remand of the minister, which was subsequently accepted.
While speaking at a protest being staged by Marri tribesmen which entered its third day in Quetta’s Red Zone on Thursday, Marri — the father of seven — confirmed that the two males that were found in the well along with the woman were his sons. He added that two of his children are still missing.
At the protest, Marri also corroborated the version of the police surgeon, saying his two children had been murdered. He blamed Khetran for the crime.
He said the protest would continue until the recovered people were brought to him and justice was meted out.
