PESHAWAR: The police told the Peshawar High Court on Tuesday that an Indian national, who had gone missing in Kohat district in 2012, was taken away by personnel of intelligence agencies from a police station before his mysterious disappearance.

During the hearing into the case, investigation officer Sajjad Khan of the Kohat police told Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Ikramullah Khan that the police’s Riders Squad had arrested Nehal Hamid Ansari, 28, in the city and shifted him to the Kohat Development Authority (KDA) police station for interrogation.

He said the arrest was made on the information provided by Intelligence Bureau inspector Naeem Khan.

The investigation officer said then SHO of the said police station, Faizullah Khan, insisted personnel of intelligence agencies took the Indian national away after the police quizzed him and that his whereabouts had not been known since.

PHC calls ex-head of Kohat police station, where Nehal was taken after arrest

The court then issued directions to the said SHO, who currently serves in Hangu district, to show up along with the relevant record on Oct 29 to inform it about the whereabouts of the missing Indian national.

Later the hearing was adjourned.

The Indian national’s mother, Fauzia Ansari, had filed the petition.

A police station in Karak had registered an FIR on the missing person’s disappearance. However, another FIR on it was registered by the KDA police station afterwards.

When the bench began hearing into the case on Tuesday, lawyer for the petitioner, Shakil Asif, produced a joint investigation team’s report on the missing Indian national.

The lawyer said according to the JIT, Nehal Hamid Ansari had gone to Kohat on Nov 14, 2012 and booked a room in a local hotel on what later turned out to be a forged national identity card. He said the hotel owner claimed the guy later stepped out and didn’t return.

“The hotel owner insisted the SHO of the KDA police station came to him at midnight on that day and gave him the keys of the guy’s room saying he’s an Indian citizen, whose real name was Nehal Hamid Ansari,” he said.

The lawyer said his client wanted to know who had persuaded her son to visit Pakistan from Afghanistan, where he had gone to find job, and that who had made his fake Pakistani identity card.

He said under Article 4 of the Constitution, Pakistani laws were applicable to the missing Indian national and therefore, he should be dealt with under the law of the land.

The petitioner said her 28-year-old son, an MBA degree holder, used to teach at the Mumbai Management College. She said her son first went to Afghanistan in Nov 2012 in search of aviation job and then entered Pakistan to help a Kohat girl in distress.

The petitioner claimed her son was the president of the Rotary Club, New Delhi and had gotten in contact with the girl on Facebook, a social networking site.

She insisted her son was in contact with some Pakistani friends, who had suggested him to cross into Pakistan without visa.

The petitioner had earlier sent an application for relief to the Human Rights Cell of the Supreme Court, which had forwarded it to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances in March 2014.

On April 10, 2014, the commission directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa home department to form a JIT to trace the missing person’s whereabouts.

On the directions of the commission, the City police station in Karak registered an FIR of the disappearance of the Indian national under Section 365 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Besides, the JIT also met with the SP (investigation) Karak, DSP (Special Branch), representatives of intelligence agencies and Zeenat Shehzadi, a representative of the petitioner.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2014