HYDERABAD: A Muttahida Qaumi Movement-London activist, Nafis Siddiqui, who had gone missing while on his way to his workplace on Jan 18, re-emerged on Thursday and held a press conference to announce his retirement from politics and dissociation from the party.

Mr Siddiqui, a sector in-charge in the party’s organisational structure, along with his car had gone missing from near Bhitai Hospital in Latifabad while driving to his workplace on Jan 18 and later, his wife alleged that some men in civvies riding a Vigo had whisked him away.

He talked briefly to journalists at the local press club and said some unknown people dropped him outside his residence late on Wednesday evening.

He avoided revealing what had actually happened to him. He denied press reports that he was manhandled or injured by his ‘captors’. He said that he was not being pressured to quit MQM-London or join any other party. He said his decision to quit the party and politics was his own, adding that his family remained under severe mental stress during his disappearance. “It’s Pakistan and my family that are first for me”, he said.

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2017