Dr Ayaz returns but no news of other two Pakistanis

KARACHI: Two months have passed since Shireen Khan, wife of Dr Ayaz Ali Khan, last heard from her husband. “He had gone on one of his routine trips to the UAE and we spoke on the phone on April 4,” she recalls. “I could have never thought that he would just disappear the next day.”

As the mystery around Dr Khan’s disappearance from Ras-al-Khaimah in UAE deepens, family members and doctors affiliated with Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) in Punjab have criticised the indifferent attitude of the government and Riphah International University (RIU) who had sent him on an assignment to the UAE. They are yet to contact Dr Khan’s family with an update.

As principal of Islamic International Dental College in Islamabad – also an affiliate of the RIU – Dr Khan had been invited to Ras-al-Khaimah as visiting associate dean. He is also the head of the faculty of dentistry at Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Lahore and has authored a number of research papers.

Shireen told The Express Tribune that over the past two years Dr Khan had frequently visited the UAE where he was helping to set up the faculty of dentistry at Ras-al-Khaimah College of Dental Sciences, which is affiliated with the RIU.

On April 5, Dr Khan, along with two other Pakistani men, was picked up by the UAE federal security department from the guesthouse of Ras-al-Khaimah College of Dental Sciences. According to reports, he was immediately shifted from Ras-al-Khaimah to Abu Dhabi for interrogation and no one has heard from him since. The doctor is also being denied access to a lawyer or the Pakistani embassy in Abu Dhabi.

Meanwhile, in a recent statement the Amnesty International said it fears that the three detained Pakistanis may be “at great risk of torture or other ill-treatment”.

“What disturbs me most is not just my husband’s disappearance but the attitude of the authorities in Pakistan who have chosen to remain silent,” said his wife. “How can they not push the UAE authorities to allow some sort of access to a doctor of his stature?”

Foreign office spokesperson Abdul Basit said that the government is “doing the best they can” to contact Dr Khan, but have no information of his whereabouts yet. “We have contacted the federal authorities in UAE but our embassy cannot be granted access till their interim period of investigation is over, which is three months,” Basit said.

Earlier, Shireen was told by the foreign office’s additional secretary Middle East that the interim period was two months, which was to have ended on June 5. She added that the family and doctors from the PMA Punjab have filed several appeals to the president, prime minister and the interior ministry, but have not received any official statement on how the case is progressing. “Their silence indicates that they have officially allowed our nationals to be detained in this manner,” said Shireen.

Dr Izhar Chaudhry, former general secretary of the PMA Punjab and a friend of Dr Khan, added that if he is suspected of any wrongdoing or has been charged with a crime, the UAE government should at least grant access to a lawyer. “Two months is a long time to detain anyone without any charges,” he said.

He also blamed the RIU’s administration for remaining silent on the issue. “Dr Khan was on duty when picked up and it is the responsibility of the RIU to ensure that their employee is in safe hands, but the owner of the RIU is not responding to our calls either.”

According to reports, witnesses in UAE said that Dr Khan was taken by security officers along with two Pakistani brothers, Dr Akmal Waheed and Asad Waheed, both of whom worked at the college as well.

Dr Khan’s nephew Arsalan Abbasi told the media that the family has unofficially been told that his uncle’s disappearance may be linked to the Waheed brothers, whose third brother was allegedly linked to a Taliban cell in Waziristan and was recently killed in a US drone strike.

Meanwhile, the wife of Asad Waheed, an administrator at the Ras-al-Khaimah College of Dental Sciences, recently contacted the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) to file an appeal for her husband and brother-in-law’s recovery.

In the appeal, Amna Asad said that her husband migrated to the UAE in 2007 for better job prospects and found a job at the college. The following year, Asad’s elder brother, Dr Akmal Waheed, who was a heart surgeon at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in Karachi, also migrated.

Amna also told the HRCP that in 2003 Dr Akmal had been charged with terrorism and falsely named in an FIR at the Boat Basin Police Station in Karachi, but was acquitted by the Sindh High Court.

However, Shireen denies knowing the Waheeds. “I know all my husband’s friends and don’t recall him mentioning any Dr Akmal Waheed,” she said. “I want to know why he is being linked to these brothers who were merely his colleagues.”

“Even if Dr Khan is suspected of aiding some jihadi group, the charges should be made public and he should be tried in court,” said Dr Chaudhry.

Dr Khan has a big following of students in Pakistan and abroad – many of whom have been pursuing his case and posting links of news reports related to his disappearance on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. A number of them also held peaceful demonstrations in Lahore and Karachi last month to raise awareness about the case and secure his release.

“Since our government is silent, I have been relying on newspapers for information,” said Shireen.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2010.