The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday ordered the Lahore police to recover YouTuber Aun Ali Khosa, who was allegedly “taken into custody by some unknown armed men”, by August 20.

A day ago, Aun’s wife Binish Iqbal filed a petition in the LHC, a copy of which is seen by Dawn.com, claiming that her husband was “in the unlawful and illegal custody of the law enforcement authorities”.

Iqbal stated that the whereabouts of Aun were unknown and she feared for his “safety having strong apprehension that his husband has been a victim of enforced disappearance.”

Justice Shahbaz Ali Rizvi heard the petition today and ordered the Lahore capital city police officer (CCPO) to produce the “abducted” artist in the court on August 20.

Meanwhile, Lahore Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Operations Faisal Kamran has said that the police had not received any complaint about the alleged abduction of Aun, adding that the police would investigate the matter after receiving any complaint.

The petition

According to the petition, Aun was a “digital content creator, a writer, and a dignified comedian/artist having a massive following of 137,000 subscribers on YouTube”.

It claimed that at 2am on August 15, a dozen police officials and “men with masked faces in plain clothes” barged into his apartment after breaking apart the entrance door.

The heavily armed men confiscated Aun’s phone, laptop, computer system, and digital camera, the petition further detailed.

“The petitioner followed them as they left in a Fortuner and a Black Revo double cabin vehicle. After manhandling him and shoving him into the Black Vigo parked outside the flat, they fled,” the petition alleged.

It added that the petitioner repeatedly asked the men the reason for picking him up but they refused to provide any information and left.

Appeal to spread the word

Taking to platform X on August 15, the artist’s brother, Ali Sher Khosa, said Aun had been “taken into custody by some unknown armed men from his flat in Lahore”.

He asked people to pray for Aun’s recovery while also requesting everyone to spread the word.

In a post on X today, Khosa rebuffed reports that his family was “receiving threats”.

“This is fake news! Please stop spreading it. We have not received any threat calls from anyone,” he said.

Rights activist, group condemn incident

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said that it was alarmed by reports that the digital content creator was “abducted” allegedly by unknown armed men from his home in Lahore.

HRCP said it was concerned that the incident may be related to his work as a satirist and called for his immediate recovery.

Activist and lawyer Jibran Nasir, in a satirical post on X, said that the “abduction” of the video blogger was “proof” that people’s laughter could also bring “instability” to the country.

“For stability, it is important that the people remain quiet, do not question and silently tolerate fascism,” Nasir said.

“No need to use your brain. The state will tell when to be happy, when to laugh, when to cry,” he added.