Mystery of missing Indian clerics deepens

The clerics were considered ‘suspicious’ as they used to visit their relatives in Lahore's Sanda area every...

LAHORE: Pakistani authorities seem to have found themselves stumped trying to untangle the mystery surrounding the disappearance of two Indian clerics who reportedly went missing on Wednesday while visiting the shrine of a popular Sufi saint in Lahore.

Syed Asif Ali Nizami, the 80-year-old chief cleric of New Delhi’s Dargah Nizamuddin Aulia, and his nephew Nazim Ali Nizami, were visiting Data Darbar in Lahore when they went missing on Wednesday.



According to the Indian media, the duo was set to fly to Karachi on Wednesday, and while Asif was allowed to board, Nazim was stopped at Lahore airport on grounds of incomplete documents. “While Nazim went missing from Lahore airport, Asif went missing after arriving at Karachi airport,” the Times of India newspaper quoted a source as saying.

“No clue to the missing Indian clerics has been found thus far,” an official told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity on Friday. “No formal case has so far been registered,” said another official.

Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said on Thursday that an Indian request seeking assistance for the recovery of the two clerics has been received. The request has been forwarded to the interior ministry, which is pursuing the matter.

Earlier, Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted that New Delhi has taken up the matter with Islamabad. “We have taken up this matter with [the] government of Pakistan and requested them for an update on both the Indian nationals in Pakistan,” Swaraj wrote on the microblogging site.

We have taken up this matter with Government of Pakistan and requested them for an update on both the Indian nationals in Pakistan./4

— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 17, 2017

The official, who spoke to The Express Tribune, said that the two clerics were considered ‘suspicious’ because they used to visit their relatives in the Sanda area of Lahore every few months.

Interestingly, Lahore’s DIG (operations) Dr Haider Ashraf said they have not received any complaint from any individual or Embassy about any missing Indian citizen(s). “We will initiate investigation only after we receive any complaint,” he told The Express Tribune.



There are frequent exchanges of ‘Khadims’ between Delhi’s Nizamuddin Auliya shrine and Data Darbar in Lahore.

In April 2015, a five-member Indian Sikh family went missing in Lahore which was later booked for violation of the Foreigners Act. Authorities claimed that the family had gone into hiding. No clue has been found about their whereabouts since.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2017.