After Salman Haider: Two more missing activists resurface

Waqas Goraya and Asim Saeed are safe, say families

LAHORE: A day after activist Salman Haider’s family confirmed he had been ‘recovered’, two more missing bloggers were confirmed to be safe by their families and the police on Sunday.

Talking to The Express Tribune, police officials and the families of Waqas Goraya and Asim Saeed, who disappeared in the first week of January, confirmed the two had been recovered.

Saeed, according to his father Ghulam Haider, returned home briefly on Saturday but then left quickly, and messaged the family on Sunday morning to inform them that he was safe and would call soon. He said Saeed had either returned to Singapore or was in Germany.

Goraya, a PhD scholar at a university abroad, went missing on January 4 after visiting a plot in Lahore’s Wapda Town with his cousin. He had returned to Pakistan just two months earlier to attend his sister’s wedding.

Two days after Goraya’s disappearance, Saeed was allegedly abducted from his house in Lahore’s Factory Area at around 7 in the evening. Saeed’s father, in his complaint, said at least eight persons showed up at their house on the day of the incident and forcefully took his son away.

Contradictory accounts

Confusion surrounds as to which of the five activists who went missing from various cities between January 4 and 7 have now returned.

On Saturday, Salman and another blogger were reported safe by their families. Different media reports, however, contradicted each other while identifying the unnamed blogger. Some reports named him Ahmed Raza Naseer while others identified him as Goraya. Activist Samar Abbas is still thought to be missing.

Naseer went missing from Sheikhupura on January 7 while Abbas went missing from Islamabad on the 10th of that month.

Family refuses police access to Salman Haider

Salman Haider has yet to give a statement to the police about what happened to him. Police tried to get access to Haider on Saturday but were told by his family that he was resting and was not in a position to record his statement. On Sunday, the police contacted his family again but the family said that Haider was still not ready to give a statement.

“His family told us that they would be in touch with the law enforcement officials and would let us know when Salman Haider is fit to talk to police,” a police officer told The Express Tribune. The family also requested the police to not take any action on their application, which was submitted when Haider went missing on January 6, till the time when Haider is in a position to talk on the issue with the police.

The family told the police that doctors had advised not to compel Haider to make a statement unless he was ready to do so.

(WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY ARSALAN ALTAF IN ISLAMABAD AND INPUT FROM NEWS DESK)

Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th, 2017.