CHARSADDA/PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) will take up a petition on Wednesday seeking the recovery of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Public Health Engineering Fazal Shakoor.
The petition was filed on Tuesday, a day after the minister and two other men with him were allegedly abducted by unidentified armed men near Peshawar’s M-1 toll plaza.
A case has also been filed at the Chamkani police station on kidnapping charges. Both the petition and the first information report (FIR) were filed on the complaint of the minister’s brother, retired Major Anwar Aziz.
The FIR, dated Sept 21 and seen by Dawn, alleged that Fazal, his driver Qaiser Khan and Constable Mujahid were abducted by unidentified armed men near Peshawar’s M-1 toll plaza on Monday afternoon.
The plea, filed through advocate Bashir Khan Wazir, requested the PHC to direct the police and other law enforcement agencies to recover the minister, whose whereabouts remain unknown to his family.
It also sought directions to the KP inspector general (IG) and the capital city police officer (CCPO) to constitute a high-level inquiry committee to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the incident and take steps to recover Fazal.
The KP IG, CCPO, the Peshawar senior superintendent of police (SSP) Operations, and other relevant authorities have been made respondents in the petition.
It claimed that armed men in plain clothes intercepted his vehicle near the Peshawar Motorway Toll Plaza and fired at its tyres. It further alleged that the armed men then forced the provincial minister out of his vehicle and took him away.
The plea described the alleged abduction of the provincial minister in broad daylight as a matter of serious concern and requested the PHC to order his recovery.
The petitioner maintained that if the missing minister was in the custody of any state institution or other authority, he should be produced before the court and released if his detention was found to be unlawful.
The petition is fixed for hearing on Sept 23 (Wednesday) before a division bench comprising Senior Puisne Judge Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Kamran Hayat Miankhel.
The FIR invoked Section 365 (kidnapping or abduction) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
According to the complaint, Fazal and the others were travelling from Charsadda to Peshawar to attend a KP Assembly session when they were intercepted by armed men in “black uniforms and plain clothes”.
They were taken to an undisclosed location, while the official vehicle they were travelling in was left at the spot, the FIR added.
A video shared by the PTI showed several masked armed men approaching the minister’s car. In the video, one of the masked men grabs the door of the car to open it while another is seen firing shots at the tyres of the moving vehicle.
MNA picked up en route to protest: PTI
PTI also claimed its MNA Fazal Muhammad Khan was allegedly abducted by unidentified men in the limits of Mardan’s Sheikh Maltoon police station.
Waqar Khan, personal secretary to Khan, told Dawn that the MNA was travelling from Islamabad to Charsadda when unidentified men intercepted his vehicle near the Rashakai Interchange on the Mardan Bypass.
He said the attackers fired at the tyres of the vehicle before taking the MNA away. According to him, the unidentified men were dressed in black clothes.
Khan was travelling to Charsadda to attend a protest demonstration against the alleged abduction of Fazal.
That protest was held later in the afternoon at Charsadda’s Farooq Azam Chowk, with PTI leaders and workers demanding the minister’s immediate recovery.
The protesters also called for the release of political workers allegedly detained in connection with the party’s activities.
Declaring their support for the PTI’s planned march to Islamabad on Sept 27, the workers said they would demand an end to “state oppression”, supremacy of the Constitution and law, and the establishment of a “genuine system” in the country.
Furthermore, the PTI leaders expressed concern over the alleged detention of Khan and condemned the registration of a case against KP Minister for Communication and Works Shakil Khan.
They said the alleged incidents involving elected representatives were a matter of concern and demanded that Fazal and Khan be brought before the public immediately. If detained, they said, the two lawmakers should be produced before a court in accordance with the law.
The speakers questioned the situation of ordinary citizens, contending that if elected representatives could allegedly face such treatment under their own provincial government, the plight of common people could only be worse.
In a statement posted on X, KP Information Minister Shafi Jan termed the “picking up” of Fazal a “direct attack on the Constitution, law, democracy and public mandate”.
“We will not be intimidated by such tactics. Snatching away the right to peaceful political struggle is the height of fascism, but we will continue to fight for our rights while remaining within the bounds of the Constitution and law,” he said.
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