Authorities at a Turkish school in Lahore on Wednesday filed a request at the Satu Katla police station for the opening of a case regarding the 'mysterious disappearance' of a Pak-Turk Schools' former director and his family, police said.

The school official, Mesut Kaçmaz, his wife and two children were picked up by unidentified men from their house late on Tuesday night, police said.

Informed sources, however, have alleged that the former director and his family may have been picked up by a law enforcement agency.

While the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Kaçmaz and his family remain unclear, local media earlier reported that the former director and his family had been kidnapped.

According to Daily Pakistan, the Turkish family had been living in Lahore on an asylum-seeker certificate from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) for a year.

The family had remained in Pakistan even though the interior ministry had asked the Turkish staff of Pak-Turk schools and colleges to leave the country in November.

According to Daily Pakistan, Fatih Avci ─ a Turkish language teacher also living in Pakistan on an asylum-seeker certificate ─ said he saw the family being taken from their home on Tuesday night.

Avci, who lives in the same building as the disappeared family, added that he could not tell where they were being taken and that there were bags covering their faces.

Avci said he had heard a commotion in the middle of the night and subsequently went downstairs to see what was causing it. He added that he witnessed the "raid" at his neighbour's house. When he (Avci) protested the harsh treatment being meted to Kaçmaz's wife, he, too, was arrested.

He said he was handcuffed and put in the front seat of a car. Avci said he was later released.

"We are ordinary educationists and being subjected to such a revolting treatment as if we were criminals is so appalling," Daily Pakistan quoted Avci as saying.