ISLAMABAD, June 28: Amjad Hafeez, the 26-year-old Pakistani who has been abducted by militants in Iraq, hails from Parati, a village 16km north of Azad Kashmir's Rawalakot (Poonch) district, Dawn has gathered.
Talking to Dawn on telephone, Amjad's 47-year-old mother Saeeda Jan and his uncle Abdul Razzaq Khan appealed to the government to make every possible effort to get Amjad released from Iraq.
Razzaq Khan, who has his own business in Rawalpindi said no government official, either from Islamabad or Azad Kashmir, has so far contacted the family of Amjad. Amjad, a driver by profession, is a neighbour of Azad Jammu Kashmir Legislative Assembly Speaker Sardar Siab Khalid.
He has a 25-year-old jobless brother Rashid Hafeez and three sisters, one of them unmarried. He left for Kuwait about five years ago after having been hired by Saudi Arabian catering firm Al-Tamimi, his cousin Zubair said. He visited Pakistan about two years back and got married but later sent divorce papers to his wife for unknown reasons.
Al-Tamimi has a sub-contract for catering services with US Vice-President Dick Chenney's firm Kellogg, Brown and Root that has major contracts in Iraq in the post 9/11 situation.
A local, Mohammad Ilyas, and a US national of Pakistani origin, Mohammad Shabbir, have been hiring hundreds of people from Azad Kashmir and other parts of Pakistan on behalf of Al-Tamimi for many years now and have been providing them jobs in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other countries of the Middle East.
Zubair said Saeeda Jan would be reaching Islamabad in the night to appeal to the abductors through print and television channels to release Amjad who had no direct role in Iraq situation and was there only to earn bread and butter for his family back home.
He said Amjad has been in Iraq for over six months now and had last contacted his family through telephone about two months ago. He is the only bread earner of his family as his parents had separated about 15 years ago, he said. Iraqi abductors threatened on Sunday through an Al-Jazira videotape to behead Amjad within 72 hours if American forces did not release some prisoners being held in Iraq.
"Three days after the airing of this picture, we will cut off his head," said a militant in the video which also showed Amjad. The hostage takers said they had seized the Pakistani near the US base at Balad, 80km north of Baghdad.
"You must release our prisoners held near the US base in Balad, in Dujail, in Yethrib, in Samara and near Abu Ghraib. You have three days from the date of this recording and after that we will behead him. We have warned you," said the tape.
The hostage urged President Pervez Musharraf to close the Pakistani Embassy in Iraq and to ban all Pakistanis from coming to Iraq. He appealed to his fellow countrymen not to work in Iraq.
He said his life would not be spared even though he was also a Muslim. "I am also a Muslim, but despite this they did not release me," he said. "They are going to cut the head of any person regardless of whether he is a Muslim or not," he further said.
Tariq Naqqash from Muzaffarabad adds: President of the ruling Muslim Conference party and the relatives of a Kashmiri worker abducted in Iraq made an impassioned appeal on Monday to the captors to release the hostage "in the name of humanity and Islam."
In Islamabad, the foreign office and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League also appealed to the captors to spare the life of the hostage. "I appeal to the captors in the name of humanity and Islam to release my grandson," said Khadim Hussain, 71-year old great parent of Amjad.
"He (Amjad) has nothing to do with the miseries of the Iraqis and should not be punished for something in which he has no share," he told Dawn on telephone from Paniola Parathi village. "His employment with an American company to earn livelihood should not be taken as his crime," he added.
Amjad's mother was unaware of his abduction and so was his father who runs a passenger wagon between Paniola and Rawalpindi. The ailing mother came to know about the incident on Monday after frequent attempts by the mediamen to reach the family for comments.
MC president and AJK Legislative Assembly member Sardar Attique Khan urged the captors to "release him on humanitarian grounds, particularly keeping in view the agony his family is undergoing." Amjad is one of two new hostages announced by the militants in Iraq over the weekend, and both have been threatened with beheading.
A separate video from a group calling itself the Islamic Retaliation Movement - Armed Resistance Wing said it had abducted Wassef Ali Hassoun, a US marine of Lebanese origin.
In a formal statement issued early on Monday, Pakistan said: "Its policy was not to accede to conditions or demands put forth by any hostage-takers." Pakistani officials at the mission in Baghdad have been ordered by Islamabad to try to establish Amjad's whereabouts, the foreign ministry said. The mission "has been in contact with the Iraqi authorities and religious leaders to secure the release of Mr (Amjad) Hafeez," it said.