Enforced disappearance?: Police clueless about missing seminary cleric

Anwar was picked up by armed men from his house in Bara Kahu in June

ISLAMABAD: Four months after a cleric was picked up by unidentified armed men from his house in Bara Kahu, police are still clueless about his whereabouts.

Family of Muhammad Anwar, who ran a seminary, told The Express Tribune that around 10-15 men wearing masks and armed with guns stormed the seminary in the early hours of June 13 and took four people away in their vehicles at gunpoint.

Those who were picked up included Anwar, Maulana Mubashar Riaz, Shahabuddin and Qari Hassan. Of the four, Shahabuddin and Riaz returned home a few weeks later but Anwar and Hassan remain missing.

One of Anwar’s brothers, Arifullah, lodged a complaint with the Bara Kahu police soon after the incident but the police, instead of registering an FIR, procrastinated on the matter for months.

The police finally registered a kidnapping case on Saturday but not before the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances directed the Inspector General of Islamabad Police to do so.



Police, however, say they have been working on the case for some time now but have been unable to generate any leads.

The commission has also directed Islamabad’s chief commissioner to form a joint investigation team to recover the missing person.

Arifullah, who had petitioned the commission, maintained that his brother had no connection to any religious or sectarian organisation and merely taught the Holy Quran at the seminary.

“Even if there were any allegations or suspicions against him, he should be dealt with according to the law,” he said and requested the authorities to help find his brother.

Anwar, 45, has three sons and two daughters, the eldest being 14-year-old. The family hails from Gilgit.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th, 2016.