LAHORE, Aug 28: The interior ministry is making efforts for the extradition of Shamim Khan who claimed to have hurled shoe at President Asif Ali Zardari during his address to party men in Birmingham early this month.

Official sources told Dawn that the interior ministry had provided “criminal record” of Khan to the UK authorities, requesting them to hand him over to Pakistan so that he could be brought to justice.

“Khan, a resident of Palai Gala, Sehnsa tehsil, Azad Kashmir, has been declared a proclaimed offender in an attempted murder case. In 1993, he injured his opponent and inspector Shadab over an enmity and then managed to flee to UK,” a source said and added that a case had been registered against him in the Palai Gala Police Station.

“At present, Shadab is discharging his duties as Kotli DSP and the person Khan fired a shot at has become handicapped,” he said.

The source said Khan stayed in his friend Mushtaq’s house in the UK after fleeing from AJK. “Later, Mushtaq was murdered by his son and Khan was interrogated by the British police but somehow he got away.” He said one of the sons of Khan was caught with opium at Islamabad airport before boarding a London-bound flight.

“As the British interior ministry is only interested in Khan’s criminal record, we have tried to unearth who is behind the conspiracy hatched against President Zardari during his visit to Birmingham,” a senior party leader said. “It has been transpired that Khan had never been a PPP worker and he entered the place along with Lord Nazir Ahmed,” the PPP leader said, adding that now Khan claimed to be a close associate of PML-N AJK chapter president Raja Farooq Haider. Haider has however denied his relation with Khan.

“I would like to ask those who portrayed Khan as a ‘thorough gentleman’ to look into these facts,” he said. It is also learnt that the PPP leadership is considering action against party men who made arrangements for the function. Sources said Khan took advantage of ‘mismanagement’ in distribution of invitation cards and managed to enter the place.

Farhatullah Babar, the president’s spokesman, insisted that no shoe hurling incident took place during President Zardari’s visit to the UK therefore there was no question of extradition of anyone.