PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Friday directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa advocate general to contact the province’s inspector general of police for the recovery of a Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insafsocial media activist kidnapped three days ago.

Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah of a single-member bench also put the local police on notice, seeking a report about the matter from the relevant station house officer.

The bench issued the directions during the hearing into a habeas corpus petition by Syyeda Urooj about the kidnapping of her husband, Kamran Khan.

She alleged that her husband was illegally confined, but his whereabouts were not known.

The petitioner requested the court to declare the confinement of her husband illegal and unconstitutional.

She said she had reported her husband’s kidnapping to Peshawar’s East Cantonment police station, which registered an FIR on April 30, but the whereabouts of her husband were still not known.

The petitioner claimed that the CCTV footage of the abduction was available, wherein her husband was seen taken away by some unidentified people in a vehicle.

An additional advocate general told the court that he would contact the relevant SHO to get an update on the matter.

The bench directed him to contact the AG and ask him to approach the IGP for the early recovery of the social media activist.

Following the hearing, PTI Peshawar region president Sher Ali Arbab, who is also an MNA, told reporters that such kidnappings didn’t benefit any party or institution.

He said the kidnapping of a citizen was a crime, no matter who did it.

“Those behind such acts should know that the people will no longer tolerate all that,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2024