THE father of kidnapped Blackburn student Paul Wells has said he does not hold out any hope of ever finding out what happened to his son.

It followed news Paul's disappearance is being linked with the man accused of the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.

Paul, whose family lived in Feniscowles, Blackburn, until a couple of years ago, and Keith Mangan from Middlesbrough were kidnapped in an attempt by Islamic militants to get London School of Economics dropout Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and 21 other terror suspects freed from Indian prisons.

Paul's body has never been recovered although his family have said they believe he is dead.

Former public schoolboy Saeed, 28, from Wanstead, east London, appeared in court yesterday in Karachi. It was expected he would be charged with the abduction of Mr Pearl.

But authorities have uncovered links between his group and those responsible for kidnapping Paul in 1995.

Paul's father Bob said he thought it was quite likely that Saeed did have links with the gang which kidnapped his son, but he said it was doubtful that those would be able to shed any more light on Paul's whereabouts.

Speaking from his new home in Cumbria, Mr Wells said: "You always hope that every time those people are picked up somewhere that we will learn a little bit more. But whether we will learn enough to be able to find Paul and put him to rest is another matter.

"I don't believe that myself. We have put Paul to rest in our minds, I think, and we know really that we are unlikely to ever find him, or find out what happened to him. I think the people who know where he is are now all dead and they are the only ones."

Mr Wells said he believed the majority of such terrorist organisations all had links to each other, but not enough to know details.

"They are all aware of what the others are doing, but they won't have details. Our investigations have brought us to the conclusion that they are all linked.

"These people who do these terrible things - like to that poor American journalist Daniel Pearl - should be stopped.

"They are evil people and there shouldn't be any more atrocities like this."

In Karachi yesterday, with two other suspects, Saeed was remanded in custody for a further two weeks. In the closed-door hearing, the judge delayed the charges to give police a chance to recover Mr Pearl's body, said chief prosecutor Raja Quereshi.