Mysterious comeback: ‘Missing’ lawyer, friend return home

Hammad was allegedly abducted on June 20 along with two friends.


Rizwan Shehzad August 11, 2015
Hammad was allegedly abducted on June 20 along with two friends. STOCK IMAGE

ISLAMABAD: A lawyer and his friend, who went missing on June 20 and were believed to be in the custody of an intelligence agency, reportedly returned home last Friday.

The counsel of the missing lawyer said he got confirmation of Hammad Dadan’s return over the phone and has yet to meet him.

“At the moment, he is resting at home. I have no idea whose custody he was in or what happened to him in the last two-and-a-half months and how he looks like now,” his counsel Shahzad Akbar told The Express Tribune.

Following his return, Akbar said Dadan has gone ‘underground’ and has not yet revealed his ordeal to anyone. “I don’t know if he will reveal anything to anyone. He was taken captive and, I think, he will take time to recover,” he said.

Mumtaz Anwar Abbasi had approached the Islamabad High Court saying his son, Dadan, along with his friends went to Masjid Imam Abu Daud near Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences for Taraweeh prayers on June 20 and were allegedly picked up by  personnel of an ‘intelligence agency’

Those abducted with Dadan included Abdullah Umar and Ammar Dadan.

Umar, reported to be Dadan’s cousin, was allegedly involved in the killing of Federal Investigation Agency Special Prosecutor Zulfiqar Ali. He was arrested as a suspect but granted bail on medical grounds in July last year, and is still missing after the June 20 incident.

Abbasi had cited the SHO Industrial Area police, Islamabad IGP, head of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and secretaries of the defence and interior ministries as respondents.

During the case, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui kept expressing annoyance over the police’s failure and non-compliance of court orders in tracing Hammad, who is a member of the Islamabad District Bar Association.

Notices were issued to the ISI chief, secretary defence, and IGP Tahir Alam Khan was warned that a murder case would be registered against him and others if something happens to the lawyer.

At one stage, the police claimed that Hammad’s phone had been traced to Peshawar and an officer was sent there.

Terming police explanations ‘concocted stories,’ Justice Siddiqui had remarked that failure to recover the abducted lawyer was a question mark on the police’s performance.

Moreover, Defence Secretary Lt Gen (retd) Alam Khattak twice appeared before the court and said Hammad and others were not in the custody of any defence agency. Khattak, however, had maintained that efforts were being made to trace the abducted persons.

No one would confirm if he was in the custody of any agency or was kidnapped for ransom but Hammad’s safe return brought joy to his family and the city’s legal fraternity. “On record, we do not know where he was, but thank God he is back,” said Aleem Abbasi, president of the Islamabad High Court Bar Association.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 12th, 2015.

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