ISLAMABAD: A former governor of Afghanistan’s Herat province who was kidnapped from a market of Islamabad this month has been recovered, the Afghan Consulate in Peshawar confirmed on Friday.
Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi was going to a restaurant in a market in F-7 sector with his grandson on February 12 evening when he was abducted by unidentified men. He was in Islamabad with his family members to get UK visas.
Afghans travel to Pakistan for UK visas as they are not issued visas by the British embassy in Kabul.
According to reports, the former Afghan governor was recovered by the law enforcement personnel after exchange of fire with suspected kidnappers in Rasheed Garhi area of Swabi.
“I can confirm that Fazlullah Wahidi was recovered early Friday as I have talked to him. He has been handed over to the Afghan diplomats in the Pakistani city of Peshawar,” his son-in-law, Sayed Ikram, said in Pakistan.
Syed Ikram is in Islamabad as part of an Afghan parliamentary delegation.
No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
Pakistan is in the grip of a homegrown Taliban insurgency but the tightly-guarded capital has a very low crime rate in general and the F-7/2 sector where Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi was seized is a high security area that houses politicians, bureaucrats and expats.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have been seeking to mend relations in recent months in part to foster peace talks with the Taliban to end Afghanistan’s nearly 15-year-old war. NNI
