NEW DELHI, INDIA – Authorities at Canada’s High Commission in Islamabad say no Canadians were killed by the massive suicide bomb set outside one of the gates of the four-star Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s capital city.

The Marriott caters to international travelers and the Pakistani elite and, as the bomb exploded, many people had gathered at the hotel to break their daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. A Pakistani diplomat suggested the attack was “Pakistan’s 9/11,” BBC News reported.

“All our staff at the mission are accounted for, and as far as we know there are no Canadian casualties,” said a source within the Canadian High Commission.

The source, who often liaises with security officers at Islamabad’s two main prestigious hotels, the Serena and the Marriott, said an entire team of security officers deployed at the Marriott by the government of Pakistan accounted for seven of those who have died in the bombing. The officers are generally employed to ensure the security of VIP visitors and foreign delegations, including Canadian ones. The security staff was likely in the lobby at the time of the bombing.

At the time of filing, there were at least 40 dead and many injured but with people still trapped inside the hotel, the numbers were expected to rise. Islamabad’s police chief told the Guardian that the number of dead would be much higher because “dozens more dead” were inside.

The Marriott is a popular destination for international journalists, travelers and businessmen. In addition, many restaurants, in particular Jason’s Steakhouse, the Japanese restaurant, Sakura, and its Thai restaurant, the Royal Elephant, are also frequented by the city’s wealthier residents.

May 18, 2008
Sonya Fatah
The Toronto Star

MOGA, INDIA–Jasvir Singh Dhaliwal’s wedding was meant to be a splendid countryside affair.

The deep-red cards were lettered in gold, a sign of the family’s new-found wealth and status in Canada.

Dhaliwal, a 27-year-old Brampton resident, returned to his family’s native village in India’s western state of Punjab to tie the knot on Valentine’s Day.

He had broken off with his girlfriend of four years in Canada to wed a young Punjabi woman who lived near his family’s village home.

The wedding never took place.

On Feb. 13, as Dhaliwal left a pre-wedding party with five of his relatives, a car screeched to a halt in front of his vehicle. One of its occupants emerged and sprayed Dhaliwal and a male cousin with bullets, killing both.

Dhaliwal’s death was another example, Punjab police allege, of Indo-Canadians and other Indians living abroad hiring assassins back in India to settle scores – ranging from broken hearts to perceived stains on honour and property disputes.

Indian police have issued a warrant for the arrest of the victim’s former Brampton girlfriend, Amanpal Gill, charging her with conspiracy to murder.

They have also arrested the jilted girlfriend’s Punjab-based parents, charging them with conspiracy to murder, and have issued a warrant for the arrest of her brother, Gurusewak Singh of Brampton, on a charge of murder.

Police records show he entered India shortly before the shooting and left the country shortly after.

Gurusewak Singh and the victim worked together at one time in Brampton as drivers for a trucking company.

Attempts to reach Amanpal Gill in Brampton by the Star were unsuccessful.

Ashwini Kumar, a police constable with the Indian Reserve Battalion, has been charged with first-degree murder in the case.

CONTRACT KILLINGS, called supari, have long been standard fare in Mumbai’s underworld.

Increasingly, however, ordinary non-resident Indians are turning to hired assassins to settle their scores.

“India today is a very different place,” said Gurpreet Singh Bhuller, senior superintendent of police for rural Ludhiana.

“Doaba (in central Punjab) has a long history of supari killings that started because many people from that area settled overseas, in the U.K., in America or in Canada.

“Later, when people from other parts of Punjab started going overseas, supari killings spread to those areas as well.”

In June 2000, Jassi Kaur Sidhu, an Indo-Canadian, was found with her throat slit in Punjab when her family refused to accept her love affair and marriage to a rickshaw driver.

Last month, the Punjab and Haryana High Court sentenced four of those accused in the case to life imprisonment, including the victim’s maternal uncle in Punjab and a police officer.

The victim’s mother, Malkiat Kaur, and uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha, remain free in Canada. They have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder, Indian police say, and warrants for their arrests have been issued.

The police say they have made an extradition request to Canada. Ottawa says it does not comment on individual cases for privacy reasons.

Attempts by the Star to reach Kaur and Badesha in Maple Ridge, B.C., were unsuccessful.

Hired killers are relatively easy to find in Punjab, where unemployment, access to weapons and a sudden growth in local wealth as a result of rising property value, have fostered an underground trade in murder.

“The basic fact is there is plenty of unemployment, and we see so many luxurious things on television and cinema, and a lot of young kids are desperate to acquire those things,” noted Bhuller.

Drug use, in particular crack cocaine, is also on the rise.

Police estimate that assassins are hired for prices that run the gamut from $5,000 to $150,000.

They estimate that there have been about two dozen contract killings here since 2005.

“This sort of thing is hardly new here,” according to a Ludhiana businessman and former Sikh militant who did not want to be identified.

“People have killed in the name of honour for centuries. It’s just that now it’s not done directly by family members.”

CRIMES COMMITTED in India on behalf of non-resident Indians continue to grow in number.

One reason for such killings is a belief that the long arm of the law won’t reach perpetrators when the crimes are committed in far-off villages oceans away from the contractors’ new homes.

Canada’s Department of Justice received about 150 extradition requests from around the world last year for various types of cases but won’t give a breakdown.

The department uses a three-step process in deciding the case of a citizen or permanent resident for whom it receives an extradition request.

“After the minister of justice has made a decision based on the evidence, there is still an appeal stage,” said Christian Girouard, the department’s manager of public and media relations.

But because extradition procedures between the two countries can be so painfully slow-moving, people with a score to settle are increasingly resorting to Punjab-based killers, Indian police say.

“A lot of (non-resident Indians) feel very secure that extradition is not possible because it’s such a bureaucratic and delayed process,” said Bhuller.

“Moreover, most such transactions take place through (money transfers) leaving no proof and making it difficult to get them.”

OUTSIDE THE VIKRAJ marriage palace, a kilometre from where Jasvir Singh Dhaliwal was shot and killed, his parents talked about how they had been looking forward to back-to-back wedding ceremonies for their son, and then his sister – before assassins’ bullets turned their joy to grief.

Harjinder Kaur Dhaliwal, 59, kept her head bowed, occasionally moving a hand to wipe away tears. Her husband, 54-year-old Nirmal Singh, also spoke in hushed tones.

“I still can’t believe this has happened,” he said. “Canadian police should help us out. Our son is gone, but if they don’t catch his killer, he could do it again.”

Only silence in Dhalla incident now as ‘beaten’ child thieves disappear, witnesses clam up

March 10, 2008

TORONTO STAR

SONYA FATAH

POHIR, India–When high-profile Brampton MP Ruby Dhalla came to town two months ago, she set off a tizzy with the Indian media that sparked headlines back in Canada and set tongues wagging here.

Now, the people of this dusty Punjabi village appear to have lost their tongues over the tangled tale that started with a routine purse-snatching and culminated with alleged police brutality against the two waifs who were caught red-handed.

The purse was quickly found, but it may take a little longer for the Liberal MP, twice elected in Brampton-Springdale, to fully recover her reputation in the Indian media after being pilloried for her supposed indifference to police handling of the street children.

The local drama that played out in the capital, New Delhi, highlights the intersection of rural India’s endemic poverty with the casual violence inflicted on crime suspects – and the readiness of the country’s highly competitive media to caricature public figures.

The episode turned a routine courtesy call by Dhalla and a delegation of Canadian politicians into a public relations disaster.

Indian media accused the Canadian politician of being a “shockingly callous” ringside observer to the fate of two child thieves as they were beaten “black and blue.”

Unaware of the allegations of police brutality, Dhalla was ambushed by Mumbai-based Times Now, which quoted her as hoping the children had learned a lesson for stealing her assistant’s purse.

In the aftermath, Dhalla scrambled to undo the damage by calling for an investigation into police conduct. She received a full retraction by the offending media in India, who admitted to quoting her unfairly.

Embarrassed local officials promised a full probe.

Today, there is virtually no trace of the tempest that placed Pohir and the Canadian MP in the eye of a media storm. The police investigation has been forgotten. The accused children have disappeared, along with their parents.

Local residents, too, have clammed up. Even the journalist who first accused the police of beating up the children later refused to co-operate, for fear of jeopardizing his visa application to Britain.

A senior police officer investigating the case was transferred. And the formal inquiry probing police conduct has been disbanded, the file thrown into the dusty, paper-filled chambers of Punjab police’s records room.

In their final official report on the case, police insisted the children hadn’t been beaten “black and blue.” Indeed, they hadn’t been beaten at all, police insisted.

“They were medically examined at the Civil Hospital and it was shown that they were not harmed,” said Gurpreet Singh Bhuller, senior police superintendent for Ludhiana district.

“All the villagers said nothing had been done,” Bhullar said, confirming there was no cause for action against any police officers.

“I was in touch with the Punjab police officers on a daily basis and was told of the results of the medical report via phone,” said Dhalla in a telephone interview from Ottawa.

She said she had asked the chief commissioner of Punjab police to launch an inquiry into the incident.

“I didn’t actually have any idea (about the result).”

Pohir is a one-road town flanked by fields on either side, about 20 kilometres south of Ludhiana, Punjab’s largest city.

Everyone here seems to have taken a vow of silence.

Yet, one man had a first-hand account of the episode and swore that the children were beaten, not by local police, but by Amritsar officers accompanying Dhalla’s delegation.

“I was at the event when the whole thing happened,” said Jassi Phallewalia, the journalist who broke the story.

When Phallewalia heard Seema Bhayana, an executive assistant to Dhalla, cry out about her stolen purse, he also heard people pointing out that the two children who had smiled and waved at Dhalla from their front-row seats at the event, had fled. He scurried after them to rescue the purse and return it to its rightful owner.

“An elderly woman spotted the children rushing across the fields. I got onto my motorbike and sped away to catch them.”

The children had thrown the purse into a polyethylene bag as they rode a scooter across the field.

But with Phallewalia in pursuit on a motorcycle, they hardly stood a chance.

“I caught the kids and grabbed the bag. Then the police arrived and snatched the kids. I pulled out my camera and started taking pictures.”

In Phallewalia’s photographs, an 11-year-old boy named Sachin is shown being dragged along the ground, surrounded by police officers.

In another shot, he appears half-conscious, his face wet as he lies in the back seat of a car with his 9-year-old sister, Bindia, her hands clasped together pleadingly.

With his evidence and his eyewitness account, Phallewalia could well have been the key person in an investigation on police brutality. But he said the police never approached him, nor did he go forward with a statement, even though he initially broke the story.

“I didn’t want any negative publicity to adversely affect my visa application,” he said, fearing his testimony might jeopardize his visitor visa application to Britain.

Although Dhalla said she did not want to take action against the children, she didn’t hear about the police report filed by Hardev Singh Liddar, a Brampton resident who hosted an event for the MP at his family’s home in Pohir, until two days after the incident.

In her speech to those gathered in Pohir immediately after the incident, Dhalla said, she appealed to residents to forgive the children.

Meanwhile, Sachin and Bindia, children of migrant workers from the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, were arrested for theft, and taken to observation homes in Ludhiana and Jallander.

For many of the children getting out isn’t as easy as it was for Sachin, whose high-profile arrest earned him bail on Jan. 16.

There has been no trace of Sachin, his sister or his parents since he was granted bail on Jan. 19.

What exactly happened on Jan. 9 will likely never come to light.

The controversy, doubtless exaggerated by Dhalla’s visit to this small, rural village, is over, and the inquiry report, to have been released in mid-February, now long forgotten.

“It’s a constant problem here,” said Jassi Phallewalia, the journalist who broke the Ruby Dhalla purse-snatching story.

“Many times the kids are part of larger organized gangs and they show up at marriage halls and mingle innocently with the guests before running off with someone’s purse.”

Police, too, are familiar with the problem.

“Some operate at an individual level, encouraged by their parents and others are part of gangs operated by adults,” said Gurpreet Singh Bhuller, senior police superintendent for Ludhiana district.

Most are the children of migrant workers from the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, police say. They live well below the poverty line.

Once caught, the children are sent to juvenile detention centres and kept in custody until their court dates or until they are given bail. Many spend months, even years without visits by parents who are too scared to approach the detention system.

Sometimes it’s the frustrated villagers who take the law into their own hands. The Indian media have highlighted several cases where vigilante groups took action against thieves. In one case, a man was tied to a motorcycle and dragged along the road as punishment.

- Sonya Fatah

The Toronto Star, December 14, 2007
SONYA FATAH

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan–Until this past summer, Shahid Jamil Qureshi was enjoying the perks of being a state minister in President Pervez Musharraf’s government, hailed as the bright light of his party’s leadership.

But now, accused of killing a Canadian-Pakistani businesswoman, he has spent the last six months in jail in the company of thousands of criminals, some 30 kilometres from the spacious, leafy Islamabad suburb where he used to live.

“I have been the victim of a media witch hunt,” a sombre Qureshi said in an exclusive jailhouse interview.

How Kafila Siddiqui, 39, died has been shrouded in mystery ever since Qureshi brought her body to an Islamabad hospital on June 8.

It’s a tangled tale that stretches from Greater Toronto’s Pakistani-Canadian community to the political elites of Pakistan.

Police have charged Qureshi, 40, with illegal confinement and murder. Qureshi shared his version of what happened from behind the padlocked gates of Adyala, a facility that houses 6,500 inmates despite having a capacity for only 1,700.

Siddiqui had not been held against her will, Qureshi insisted. Instead, he said, financial and emotional distress had gradually driven her to solitude and spiritualism.

He’s been locked up, he said, because he knows the names of a long list of influential people who visited Siddiqui because they thought she had spiritual powers and were afraid of being exposed.

He says he’s hesitant to reveal their names because he is waiting for an opportune moment to help secure his own release after members of his political party deserted him following Siddiqui’s death.

His claim that Siddiqui had spiritual powers is dismissed by her husband, Salman Qaiser, a medical sales representative living in Richmond Hill.

“I have no hesitation to admit that Kafila became more religious after performing hajj (the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca) in 2004, but she was never into black magic things or even discussions,” said Qaiser, who married Siddiqui in 1997.

“She was a dynamic social lady and was very ambitious about her future business ventures.”

Siddiqui went to live in Islamabad because she saw great business opportunities. After she and her husband started working on setting up Global Reach 2005, a conference to create links between Canadian investment and Pakistani business, their financial troubles seemed to grow, Qureshi said.

“She had the political and financial connections to make the conference happen, but they were in financial trouble right from the start and their relations were strained,” Qureshi said. “They took a loan out that they were unable to pay.”

Subsequent business transactions also went sour, with creditors hounding Siddiqui for payments, he said. Her family, Qureshi said, was looking to Siddiqui to make it big.

Her husband flatly denied the couple was having financial difficulties.

” There wasn’t any financial problems for me,” Qaiser said. “I was taking care of all my bills and everything. We had not defaulted. We never filed any bankruptcy. We were never investigated for any fraud or anything. There were no creditors lined up.”

Siddiqui arrived in Pakistan hoping to mine business contracts in the capital but quickly found herself in debt, Qureshi said. A year into her two-year house lease, Qureshi said he began paying the rent.

“I helped her out not because I’m an idiot. … I thought she was going to make some serious business, and many of her projects almost came through. I didn’t give her charity. I was also hoping to reap a return on investment.”

The financial worries turned into a security threat, Qureshi said, that forced him to move in with her.

“There was one deal in particular that was meant to go through, and it didn’t. She had taken token money of $15,000 upfront but had been unable to complete the deal. These guys threatened her with dire consequences, and demanded that she repay them immediately.

“By April she had sunk into so much debt that she began to withdraw,” said Qureshi.

According to her husband, it was Qureshi who was denying everybody access to Siddiqui.

“What the heck was he doing there?” Qaiser said. “Why didn’t he seek any help or support for her? What’s his role there?”

But Qureshi insists that being incommunicado was Siddiqui’s choice and not a result of force imposed on her.

“She stopped checking her emails, she moved into the small room, she withdrew into reading the Qur’an, and didn’t want to be disturbed. I was travelling back and forth on work, and I just left her alone.”

Qureshi also alleges that Siddiqui became deeply involved in a strange kind of spiritualism with a spiritual doctor.

“She believed her in-laws had done black magic on her,” he said.

Qaiser said that allegation is just another part of a made-up story.

“We had been living very happily for over 10 years and our marriage was ideal,” said Qaiser. “But (Qureshi) himself did something. I don’t know,” he added.

“Whatever he talked about Kafila’s and my relations, our loans, debt, black magic, spiritual doctor … is all nonsense.”

With files from Joanna Smith and Fayyaz Walana in Toronto

Top Pakistani court enters investigation

The Globe and Mail, Monday, June 25, 2007
SONYA FATAH

NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court of Pakistan has taken notice of the investigation into the death of a Canadian businesswoman, asking the Inspector General of Police and other officials to appear before the Chief Justice on Friday.

Pakistan’s former state minister, Muhammad Shahid Jamil Qureshi, arrested late last week after rejection of pretrial bail in connection with Kafila Siddiqui’s death, was moved from the local police station to a VIP wing at the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology after doctors said he is unwell.

The move has given police detectives more time to investigate Ms. Siddiqui’s death, as it has delayed the four-day police remand ordered by the judge.

Meanwhile, Ms. Siddiqui’s husband, Salman Qaiser, is in Karachi finalizing permission for an exhumation of his wife’s body and a second autopsy.

Ms. Siddiqui’s death remains shrouded in mystery more than a week after the minister brought her body to a leading government hospital.

Mr. Qureshi’s arrest is among the most high-profile arrests in recent Pakistani history. At the time of Ms. Siddiqui’s death, he was a sitting minister and a member of the Pakistan Muslim League, the current governing party.

Mr. Qureshi submitted his resignation, which was accepted by President Pervez Musharraf a day before the session judge dismissed the former minister’s bail plea.

In his argument before the additional sessions judge in Islamabad on Friday, the lawyer for Ms. Siddiqui’s family, Zaheeruddin Babar, alleged that the medical legal report, or the MLR, issued by the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences was prepared under pressure after Mr. Qureshi, a sitting minister at the time, used his influence.

A series of medial examinations have failed to determine the cause of death. The reports indicate that Ms. Siddiqui was in good health and that all her organs were healthy at the time of death.

A chemical examiner’s report stated that there was no poison found in Ms. Siddiqui’s vomit. Samples of blood found on her clothes have been forwarded to a serologist for further examination.

Mr. Babar told the judge that the Mr. Qureshi’s brother, a senior superintendent with Punjab police, had influenced the outcome of the chemical examiner’s report, which was sent to Lahore.

Mr. Babar also argued that the postmortem report omitted details imperative to the case, such as bruises on Ms. Siddiqui’s forehead, and that police gave the judge a photograph of Ms. Siddiqui’s bruised forehead as evidence.

A senior doctor at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences agreed that the postmortem had not been properly carried out.

“The doctors were told that the report should state that Kafila’s condition was normal,” he said.

The postmortem, he said, was a hurried affair. No blood, hair or urine samples were sent for further examination. And the report did not mention the bruises he noticed on Ms. Siddiqui’s face.

Mr. Qureshi, who has been booked under Sections 344 and 346 of the Pakistani penal code for illegal confinement, is alleged to have held her against her will.

Islamabad — The former Pakistani government minister charged in the death of a Canadian woman was denied an extension of his bail yesterday at a court hearing in Islamabad, and was taken away in handcuffs. “He has been arrested and remanded into police custody for four days,” a senior Islamabad administration official said.

Muhammad Shahid Jamil Qureshi has been charged in connection with the death of businesswoman Kafila Siddiqui. He says she died of natural causes. Her brothers have filed a complaint with police, accusing Mr. Qureshi of confining her against her will at a house where they had both been staying.

The Globe and Mail, Tuesday, June 19, 2007
SONYA FATAH AND OMAR EL AKKAD

NEW DELHI, TORONTO — A former Pakistani cabinet minister’s statements about the events leading up to the death of a Canadian businesswoman living in his home are clearly contradicted by testimony from his own domestic staff, police alleged yesterday as they presented the first detailed description of Kafila Siddiqui’s final hours.

Muhammad Shahid Jamil Qureshi, who, until his resignation a week ago, was Pakistan’s state minister for communications, was granted a bail extension of four days yesterday; he is charged in connection with Ms. Siddiqui’s death. However, two members of his domestic staff were remanded to police custody for two days. Investigators allege Mr. Qureshi’s cook and driver withheld information from police about Ms. Siddiqui’s whereabouts in the days leading up to her death earlier this month.

After conducting a series of interrogations, police say staff members at Mr. Qureshi’s home were aware Ms. Siddiqui was living in the residence, but they were not allowed to interact with her.

“They have all given statements that Ms. Siddiqui was held against her will,” said Islamabad Police Senior Superintendent Zafar Iqbal. “Their statements go against those given by the ex-minister.

“If need be, they will be asked to testify in court.”

Mr. Qureshi’s driver, Mohammad Ijaz, testified before a magistrate yesterday, giving the first eyewitness account of Ms. Siddiqui’s last moments on the night of June 9. Mr. Ijaz said the former minister left the house around 10 p.m., carrying Ms. Siddiqui in his arms. It was not clear whether she was unconscious or dead, Mr. Ijaz added.

According to Mr. Ijaz’s testimony, Mr. Qureshi said he would drive himself – something that was out of character for a minister accustomed to being chauffeured.

Mr. Qureshi’s own account of his departure from his residence is significantly different, according to police: He told investigators Ms. Siddiqui left the house on her feet, using him for support.

But police records show Mr. Qureshi did not take the 39-year-old Canadian to the hospital – one was located just five minutes away from his home. Instead, police allege, Mr. Qureshi got onto the Islamabad-Lahore Motorway, and planned to drive Ms. Siddiqui to her sister’s home in Lahore, more than 250 kilometres away.

Motorway records obtained by police show Mr. Qureshi entered the highway but drove for a little more than an hour before turning back and returning to Islamabad.

“We have proof and we have records from the highway, because they recorded the entry and exit time of the car,” Supt. Iqbal said.

During his journey to Lahore, Mr. Qureshi allegedly made a phone call to Ms. Siddiqui’s sister, informing her that he was bringing Ms. Siddiqui, who had suddenly fallen ill, to her home. When Ms. Siddiqui’s sister said she would instead come to Islamabad herself, police allege, Mr. Qureshi hung up.

Mr. Qureshi then dialled Ms. Siddiqui’s brother, Mustafa Qayyum, in Karachi, and informed him that his sister had died, police say.

Four hours after he initially left the house, Mr. Qureshi finally brought Ms. Siddiqui to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the hospital located minutes away. She was declared dead on arrival.

In a statement to police, Mr. Qureshi’s cook said he was told to prepare two meals a day for Ms. Siddiqui, but that the meals were taken to her by the former minister. Ten days prior to her death, the cook said, he was asked to prepare only one meal a day for Ms. Siddiqui.

Results of chemical tests to determine the cause of Ms. Siddiqui’s death are being examined in a laboratory in Lahore and are expected to be made public in a few days.

Last Wednesday, police added another charge against Mr. Qureshi, which describes a criminal offence similar to manslaughter. If convicted, Mr. Qureshi could face up to 14 years in jail. Previously, he had been charged with illegal confinement.

NEW DELHI, TORONTO — The husband of Canadian businesswoman Kafila Siddiqui, who died mysteriously last week while living in the home of a Pakistani government minister, is calling for an independent Canadian medical board to conduct a second autopsy in the hope of determining the cause of his wife’s death.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Salman Qaiser, Ms. Siddiqui’s husband, also charged that the current investigation into Ms. Siddiqui’s death has been marred by missing blood samples and doctored evidence.

The minister, Muhammad Shahid Jamil Qureshi, resigned his post shortly after Ms. Siddiqui’s death, but denies any wrongdoing. This week the charges against him were upgraded from wrongful confinement to causing death, a charge that appears to be similar to the Canadian charge of manslaughter.

Mr. Qaiser believes his wife was about to terminate business projects of substantial value involving the minister and some large-scale investors.

Mr. Qaiser, and Ms. Siddiqui’s brother, Mustafa Qayyum, met with David Collins, the Canadian high commissioner in Islamabad, on Thursday. The high commissioner appeared to support bringing in an independent Canadian medical examiner if there was any concern about the current police investigation, Mr. Qaiser said.

But officials at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, where the forensic examination is taking place, were quick to dismiss allegations of tampering.

“This is total speculation,” Dr. Syed Fazle Hadi, the institute’s executive director, said. “No minister has called me. We are not going to be influenced by anyone.”

Mr. Qureshi took Ms. Siddiqui’s body to the institute in the early hours of last Saturday morning. She was pronounced dead upon arrival.

Between late April and Ms. Siddiqui’s death, several separate attempts were made to locate her. None proved successful.

Islamabad police Senior Superintendent Zafar Iqbal said officers responded to a request by Canada, made through Interpol, by going to the minister’s home. They were shooed away by the minister’s security personnel, who said no woman lived at the premises.

Canadian high commission officials in Islamabad – who were familiar with Ms. Siddiqui’s business and investment efforts and had invited her to events at the High Commission on several occasions – were also asked to locate Ms. Siddiqui.

“Staff from the Canadian consulate did visit the minister’s house,” a source at the high commission said. “We visited several times and were told on each occasion that this was the minister’s house and no woman lived there.”

A subsequent investigation by Pakistani police revealed that Ms. Siddiqui was indeed living at the home.

Asked why he did not make the trip earlier to Pakistan to find his missing wife, Mr. Qaiser said he was looking after his young son, Ali, and was pushing officials in Canada to help him locate Ms. Siddiqui.

Mr. Qaiser chased down local politicians, the RCMP, police and the office of the Foreign Affairs Department but struggled to get through layers of bureaucracy and indifference, he said.

Richmond Hill MP Bryon Wilfert brought up Ms. Siddiqui’s case during Question Period in Ottawa Friday, asking what the Minister of Foreign Affairs is doing to ensure justice is being served.

Deepak Obhrai, parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, said the Privacy Act limited what he could say.

“However, I can assure the House that upon receiving the initial inquiry, our government took immediate action to locate Ms. Siddiqui, including personal visits by the embassy staff to her last known residence and place of work,” Mr. Obhrai said.

“In addition, the family were contacted to get other information and advice that included immediately filing a police report with the Pakistani authorities.”

For his part, Mr. Qaiser said he initially tried to avoid making things worse for his wife in Pakistan.

“I also did not want to make it very public,” he said.

TORONTO and NEW DELHI — A Pakistani state minister resigned yesterday after he was named a suspect in the sudden death of Canadian businesswoman Kafila Siddiqui.

Muhammad Shahid Jamil Qureshi submitted his resignation as minister of state for communications after police confiscated a number of items from his home in a leafy Islamabad neighbourhood on Monday night. A police search of the home also exposed more inconsistencies in the troubling case of Ms. Siddiqui’s death.

Mr. Qureshi has not been arrested, but he has been placed on Pakistan’s exit control list to prevent him from fleeing the country.

Pakistani authorities had received a request from the Canadian government via Interpol, seeking information about Ms. Siddiqui’s whereabouts. A Pakistani Interior Ministry official said that police had gone to the minister’s house at the time, but were told that he was living there alone. However, subsequent police interrogations with 12 members of Mr. Qureshi’s domestic staff revealed that Ms. Siddiqui did reside in the house.

Staff at Mr. Qureshi’s residence told police that while they were aware of Ms. Siddiqui’s presence, they hardly interacted with her and were not allowed into her room, a source close to the investigation said.

Mr. Qureshi told The Globe and Mail on Monday night that Ms. Siddiqui had been renting the lower floor of his home for several months.

He said she had gone on a starvation diet prior to her death, eating only dates and drinking holy water.

After searching Mr. Qureshi’s property, however, police confirmed that Ms. Siddiqui’s room was in the upper storey of the house where Mr. Qureshi resided.

Ms. Siddiqui’s husband, Suleman Qaiser, as well as her brother, Mustafa Qayyum, had been trying to reach her for months. Finally, Mr. Qaiser contacted Canadian authorities and Interpol for assistance.

“We forwarded that request to Islamabad police,” Brigadier Javed Cheema, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said.

That prompted a police visit to Mr. Qureshi’s house, which was ultimately fruitless. Brig. Cheema said police continued to monitor the house, but never caught sight of Ms. Siddiqui.

Questions abound about Mr. Qureshi’s relationship with the 40-year-old businesswoman. Mr. Qureshi earlier told The Globe that he and Ms. Siddiqui were not business partners. Yet Canadian corporate records show that a person with the same name is listed as a co-director of two Ontario-based companies, along with Ms. Siddiqui.

In Toronto, Ms. Siddiqui’s former business mentor described her as honest, hardworking and in a loving relationship with her husband.

“She was sincere and extremely ambitious,” business consultant Bikram Lamba said in an interview. “She was almost too ambitious, to be frank.”

Mr. Lamba first met Ms. Siddiqui four years ago at a Canadian International Development Agency conference. Since then, he said, she relied on him regularly for advice on myriad projects she dreamed of starting.While she originally worked in the pharmaceutical industry like her husband, Ms. Siddiqui decided to move into consulting, Mr. Lamba said. He said she moved to Pakistan in part because her younger sister was running a business there, but Ms. Siddiqui did not believe her sister was “aggressive enough” to get things done.

The last time Mr. Lamba saw Ms. Siddiqui was in 2006, when she visited Canada. He said she showed no signs of depression or of a dispute with her husband. On numerous occasions, Mr. Lamba said, Ms. Siddiqui talked about an old college friend who was helping her with her business dealings in Pakistan: Mr. Qureshi.

“She never said anything negative about him,” Mr. Lamba said.

Ms. Siddiqui’s family members allege she was being kept at the minister’s home against her will for several months. But Mr. Qureshi insists the family’s jealousy of Ms. Siddiqui’s success and the financial pressure they exerted on her led to her death.

Ms. Siddiqui’s body was buried in a graveyard in North Karachi yesterday. It may be a week before her autopsy results are in, and Mr. Qureshi’s fate depends in large part on what those results reveal.