A brother of the former chief of staff of jailed former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan has been abducted by unidentified men in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, police said on Thursday.
According to an FIR registered at the Kahna police station, Ghulam Shabbir, elder brother of Shahbaz Gill, former chief of staff and spokesperson of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party founder, was abducted after he left his house in Lahore’s Khyiaban-e-Amin housing society a few days ago. He was supposed to go to Islamabad.
Shabbir’s son Bilal Abdullah suspected that his father might have been picked up by personnel of intelligence agencies.
Earlier this month, two professors, who are brothers of Khan’s social media focal person Azhar Mashwani, were picked up allegedly by the intelligence agencies.
Shahbaz Gill has been in the US and is a vocal critic of the powerful Pakistan Army. It is assumed that his brother was abducted to put pressure on Gill to stop propagating against the army.
In a recent post, Khan lambasted the security agencies for hounding his supporters.
“It is unfortunate how policemen and our soldiers are being targeted by terrorists as we witness casualties on a daily basis. But the military intelligence agencies, instead of doing their job of timely intelligence gathering about terrorists’ presence & movement, are being illegally used to pressurise and harass Judges adjudicating PTI-related cases (IHC judges, ATC judges); while journalists alongside political workers & social media activists & their relatives are being abducted or “arrested” on fake charges,” Khan said on his X account.
The 71-year-old cricketer-turned-politician said the latest letter by ATC Judge Sargodha to the Lahore High Court chief justice and before that, the letter by six judges of the Islamabad High Court to the chief justice of Pakistan has revealed the massive level of involvement of ISI in judicial matters and to date this continues with impunity