‘Fighting occupation forces’ - Turabi’s son meets his mother: police

Hassan Turabi reported missing since January 1 said “he wanted to go to Afghanistan to fight the occupation...

ISLAMABAD: The police are said to have arranged a meeting between the ‘missing’ son of a journalist, Shakeel Turrabi, and his mother in Lowara town near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

According to a police press statement, a police source had arranged the meeting.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had directed the police to arrange a meeting of Turabi’s son, Hassan Sherjil Turabi, with his parents.

The police claimed that his mother, however, failed to persuade Sherjil Turabi to return home because “he wanted to go to Afghanistan to fight the occupation forces”.

Without giving further details of the meeting, the police claimed that the meeting had been arranged via a “police source among the mujahideen”.

Hassan Turabi was reported missing since January 1 this year and his father had accused that Sherjil was abducted by intelligence agencies. He had also lodged a complaint of his son’s alleged abduction.

Earlier, Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had taken suo motu action in this matter and directed Inspector-General of Police Kaleem Imam and DIG (Operations) Bani Amin to recover the boy.

In the last hearing, the police had informed the Supreme Court that Sharjil’s presence had been confirmed in Lowara, a town few kilometres from Miramshah in Waziristan, where he had been living with militants “and fighting occupation forces in Afghanistan”.

It was contended that he had gone to fight Jihad of his own free will. The court dismissed the case and directed the police to arrange a meeting between Sharjeel and his parents.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2010.