HYDERABAD: A 22-year-old son of a professor of Sindh Agriculture University (SAU), Tandojam, disappeared after he left the house on April 17 on a motorcycle to drop a relative at Shahbaz Building and did not return.

Prof Dr Abdullah Arijo, chairman of SAU’s department of parasitology, said at a press conference at the press club here on Wednesday that his son Dr Shayan Ahmed Arijo disappeared along with his close relative Khadim Hussain Arijo, a grade-17 officer in the food department, who had come from Larkana to visit them.

He said that Dr Shayan’s wife told him that he did not return to the house that day and his phone remained switched off. He checked all hospitals over fears his son might have met an accident and finally reported the matter at the Hussainabad police station after failing to locate him, he said.

He said that he submitted an application to CPLC’s Hyderabad chapter chief to seek their help in tracing his son via his mobile phone number but to no avail. His son had never been involved in any activities of political, religious or nationalist parties, he said.

Dr Arijo said: “My son is a young and dedicated veterinarian and he had remained among top 10 students of his class throughout his academic career. He has a wife, a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and a six-month-old son,” he said.

He said that his motorcycle too had not been recovered so far and appealed to police and journalists to help him secure safe recovery of his son.

He complained about rude attitude of police officials at Hussainabad police station where the SHO refused to meet him and lodge an FIR about his son’s disappearance.

He said that he sent messages to Sindh IGP, Hyderabad DIG and SSP after which the DIG had contacted him thrice. His cousin Khadim Hussain Arijo was recently transferred to Hyderabad from Larkana, he said.

He said in answer to a question that he was not in a position to say anything about Khadim Hussain’s links to Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz-Arisar (JSQM-A) as he was just a visiting guest.

JSQM-A’s call

Meanwhile, JSQM-A chairman Dr Mir Alam Marri said that Khadim Hussain was a senior supporter of the party and demanded the authorities concerned release him and five other party activists immediately.

He said the party would take out rallies against enforced disappearances of its activists on April 23 in Hyderabad and Karachi and condemned what he called ‘unjustified crackdown’ against peaceful activists of the party.

He accused ‘plainclothes and uniformed policemen’ of picking them up and said that JSQM-A workers who went missing from March 17, 2011 to April 17, 2017 were; Suhbat Khoso from Khairpur, Misri Khan from Matiari, Bukhshal Mugheri, Hidayat Lohar and Aijaz Tunio from Qambar-Shahdadkot.

Hussainabad police station SHO Haq Nawaz Baloch said that police were looking into the case of Dr Arijo’s son. Police or other state institutions might have picked up his son and uncle over their involvement in some cases, he claimed.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2017