ISLAMABAD: Justice Shahzad Ahmed Khan of the Lahore High Court directed the ministry of interior on Wednesday to trace Karim Khan who went missing on Feb 5 from Rawalpindi just days before he was due to testify before the European Parliament against US drone attacks.
A native of North Waziristan, Mr Khan was seeking to register an FIR against CIA station chief Jonathan Banks for allegedly killing his teenage son and a brother in a 2009 drone strike.
Mr Khan was planning to narrate his woes before the European Parliament on Feb 15.
After preliminary hearing of the petition filed by a relative of Karim Khan for his recovery on Tuesday, the court had directed the Naseerabad police of Rawalpindi to submit a reply.
The station house officer of Naseerabad police appeared before the court on Wednesday and expressed ignorance about the disappearance of Mr Khan.
Advocate Shahzad Akbar, a counsel for Mr Khan, told the court that if police were not behind the enforced disappearance some intelligence agencies might have kidnapped him.
The judge issued a notice to the interior ministry and directed it to coordinate with the intelligence agencies to trace the missing person and ordered for his production on the next hearing on Feb 20.
The counsel, however, had told the court on Monday that police had registered an FIR against unknown persons for the kidnapping and enforced disappearance of Mr Khan.
Mr Khan was requesting the Islamabad High Court to order registration of an FIR against then CIA station chief Jonathan Banks and his counsel pleaded before the court that although the drone strike had taken place in North Waziristan, the FIR could be registered with the secretariat police station because the CIA station chief was based in Islamabad.
A civil judge of Islamabad had earlier rejected Mr Khan’s plea, but his contention was that dismissal of his application on account of territorial jurisdiction by the civil court was misconceived because under Pakistani law the FIR could be registered.
Mohammad Asghar adds from Rawalpindi: Police said a search for Karim Khan had been launched.
The search started after a kidnapping case was registered with the Naseerabad police on Tuesday on a complaint of Dil Ber Jan, a cousin of the missing man.
Mr Jan said in his complaint that Mr Khan, a resident of North Waziristan, had come to Rawalpindi along with his family about a year ago and settled there.
He said after midnight on Feb 5 unidentified men knocked at the door of his rented house in Usmania Colony, Naseerabad.
“Before the door was unlocked, the men standing outside forced their way into the house after breaking the door. Some of the intruders were in police uniform while others were in plainclothes,” Mr Jan said in the complaint.
He said all the intruders had assault weapons and soon after entering the house, they dragged Mr Khan and took him away without identifying themselves.
Later his family approached the police station concerned but they denied having any information about him.
Mr Jan claimed that Mr Khan had no enmity with anyone in his native town and he had filed a petition in the court against US drone attacks after his son Zaheenullah and brother Asif Iqbal were killed in the 2009 drone strike in Miramshah.
Dil Ber Jan told Dawn that Karim Khan had no link with any militant organisation or an enmity with anyone.
AFP adds: “The Rawalpindi bench of Lahore High Court has sought reply from the intelligence agencies through the government, ordering the agencies to produce Karim Khan on Feb 20 or give the reason behind his arrest in writing to the court,” lawyer Shahzad Akbar said.