Pakistan calls for access to 'terror plot' suspects in UK

Relatives of Pakistani students arrested in Britain over an alleged Al-Qaeda-driven plot pleaded their innocence and demanded access to their loved ones.
Twelve men, including 11 Pakistanis -- 10 of them on student visas -- and a Briton, were arrested in raids across northwest England last Wednesday. One man has been released without charge.
A five-day extension of their custody ended late yesterday.
"I am celebrating the 23rd birthday of my son today with a heavy heart, not knowing what might have happened to him," Nasrullah Khattak, a property dealer based in Pakistan's northeastern city of Peshawar, told AFP by telephone.
He said his son was a third-year student of information technology in Manchester and was guilty only of practising Islam.
"I am really at a loss to understand what was his crime. Is he being punished for being a practising Muslim?"
Families said neither the British nor the Pakistani government had provided any information, charging that news of their fate was leaked in the media.
"I am clueless about my son because neither the British government nor the Pakistani foreign office or interior ministry approached me so far. I need to see my son, I want to know how is he doing and if he is alright," said Khattak.
"I will fight for my son's release come what may," he added.
The raids were carried out in daylight after Britain's top anti-terror police officer, assistant commissioner Bob Quick, was photographed carrying clearly legible details of the operation. He resigned over the blunder.
Doctor Akbar Ali, based in Dera Ismail Khan -- another city in the North West Frontier Province that has been scarred by Islamist violence -- said his nephew was studying business administration in Liverpool.
"We have no access. Nor is our government telling us anything. It is our media which keeps us posted," he told AFP by telephone.
Decades of close ties between the former colonial power and Pakistan have taken a battering over Islamist fundamentalism and militancy, with London saying most terror plots investigated in Britain have links to Pakistan.
Pakistan's high commissioner to Britain, who has flown to discuss the issue with the Islamabad government, said he was dissatisfied at not being granted consular access to the students.