October 22, 2002	Tuesday	Sha’aban 15,1423

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LAHORE, Oct 21: The FBI personnel picked up Lahore’s known orthopedist Prof Amir Aziz Khan on Monday evening.

Official sources told Dawn that Mr Khan, former chief executive of the Jinnah Hospital, Lahore, was summoned several times during the last two days by the FBI officials over his alleged links with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

The sources said the investigators also quizzed the professor for allegedly providing formulas of biological and chemical weapons to Osama bin Laden.

The investigators reportedly accused him of “treating the Mujahideen despite the ongoing war on terror in Afghanistan.”

On Monday, two FBI agents accompanied by a team of local law enforcement agencies arrested the professor from his house in Defence at 3.30pm and drove him to the Lahore airport.

Punjab Police IG Asif Hayat was “not aware” of the arrest. “The police did not take part in the so-called operation,” was his answer to a Dawn query.

All attempts to contact Dr Khan’s family proved futile as residential phone lines had been disconnected.

Dr Nasrullah Chaudhry of the Surgimed Hospital (where the professor does private practice in the evening), confirmed his arrest.

“Dr Amir himself rang up the hospital and asked his staff to say sorry to his patients as he had been picked up by law enforcement agencies,” he said.

“I am being kept at an unknown place right now,” he quoted the professor as telling a hospital employee.

Quoting Dr Shahina, Dr Chaudhry said that Dr Amir was picked up from the Khurki Hospital when she was doing her duty there.

“Law enforcers accompanied by some foreigners have been visiting Dr Amir at the Surgimed Hospital in the last some months,” Dr Chaudhry said and added that Dr Amir had been questioned several times by the law enforcers.