KARACHI: A son of the PPI news agency’s editor has been missing for the past six days, it emerged on Wednesday.

Shafqat Soomro, the editor, told Dawn that his 25-year-old son Muhammad Shafaat, a mechanical engineer, was doing an internship at a textile factory in Karachi’s Site area.

He left his home in Sachal at 11am on May 10 for work, but has not returned since then. A number of people working at the factory have told the family that Shafaat had not reached office that day and his mobile phone was powered off.

According to Mr Soomro, he got an FIR registered with the Sachal police station and had also approached the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee, but so far they had been unable to find any clues to whereabouts of his son. Mr Soomro believes that unidentified persons kidnapped his son for some hitherto unknown reason.

The FIR was registered under Section 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The PPI editor lamented that “the authorities are keeping mum and institutions have become deaf and dumb”.

“Words can’t express the pain and agony my family and I are experiencing.”

The editor urged the journalist community and writers to raise their voice for the recovery of his missing son.

Meanwhile, the president and the secretary of the Karachi Press Club expressed concern over the disappearance of Muhammad Shafaat and urged the Sindh government to take immediate steps for his recovery.

Imtiaz Khan Faran, the president, and Arman Sabir, the secretary, said disappearance of the journalist’s son put a question mark over the performance of law enforcement agencies.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2019