20 January 2004	Tuesday	27 Ziqa'ad 1424

PESHAWAR, Jan 19: The scope of operation to trace Punjab's missing minister for sports and culture Naeemullah Shahani has been extended to the entire Waziristan tribal region and its adjacent settled areas as the administration in the North Waziristan Agency remained tight-lipped about his whereabouts.

The Agency's administrator Sherzada Khan and his senior colleagues are not available for comments since the minister went missing on Jan 10. "There are no clues to the whereabouts of the abductee or his possible captors," senator Ajmal Khan told Dawn by phone from Miranshah on Monday.

"Both the administration and the local tribesmen are completely in the dark with regard to Shahani's whereabouts," he said, adding that 15 teams of informers had been sent to different areas of North Waziristan Agency, but they could not make any headway.

The senator, who is assisting the administration in the search operation, said that a number of suspects belonging to the Torpakhel tribe had been handed over to the administration for questioning.

He said that after scanning possible hideouts in the agency, the administration had decided to extend the scope of the operation to the Frontier Regions (FRs) in Bannu and Lakki Marwat.

Senator Ajmal said that initially the administration focused on Karkarwam, a part of the North Waziristan Agency, but the search yielded no result. A senior official of the Frontier Region, Bannu, said the administration, in collaboration with the local tribes, had already searched the area but the operation ended in a failure. "We have submitted a report to the government that the minister was not in the agency," the official said.