The matter concerns the alleged abduction of Silsilah Alikhil, the daughter of the Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Najib Alikhil.
As per reports on 16 July, Silsilah was kidnapped and held under duress for several hours by unknown assailants, leaving her with severe injuries and rope marks. It was reported that Silsilah was on her way home on Friday when she was allegedly kidnapped and severely tortured.
Pakistani authorities took the case in good faith and entered an investigation into the matter. However, according to recent reports, there is no reasonable evidence to suggest that the ambassador’s daughter was abducted and held in captivity for several hours.
The investigation team is said to have scanned over 700 hours’ worth of Safe City CCTV footage from across the town but were unable to find proof of her abduction.
From the picture pieced together by investigators, it appears that Silsilah voluntarily hired cab services throughout the city on that day and paid the requisite fare to each driver. Her claims of being held and forced inside the cab by a man already present have likewise been refuted by the drivers, who were arrested and interrogated in connection with the investigation.
This apparently provided the opening for Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed’s unbecoming remarks. “There has been no kidnapping,” he said speaking on Geo News programme Naya Pakistan. “I want to tell the entire nation, this is an international racket, an international conspiracy, this is the agenda of RAW”.
The Minister termed the whole case a ploy to defame the country. “Pakistan will not back down from this case, even though there is a huge difference between her [claim] and our findings,” Rasheed said.
While there is no denying the situation was more than a little iffy, one expects a cabinet minister to be more responsible – and a seasoned politician of Sheikh Rasheed’s stature to be more politic.
Equally important is the need to wake up the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to its responsibility in sorting out this matter. Pak-Afghan ties have been sensitive at the best of times. These days, they are fraught to say the least.
In the wake of the sudden withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan and the swiftly deteriorating condition of the state of Afghanistan, analysts say attempts to sabotage Pak-Afghan ties are to be expected.
It does not help that Afghanistan’s Ashraf Ghani regime has pulled the Ambassador and diplomatic staff from Pakistan. Equally unhelpful is Ambassador Alikhil’s refusal to cooperate with the Pakistani officials investigating the matter.
One hopes that better sense prevails sooner rather than later and Afghanistan whole-heartedly cooperates with the enquiry as well as restoring full-fledged diplomatic presence in Islamabad. Pinning the blame on Pakistan’s rocky security situation, the Afghan government has effectively crippled the investigation – with what appears to be deliberate intent to tarnish Pakistan’s reputation abroad.
The authorities within Pakistan believe this is merely a teaser of what is coming forward once the withdrawal is complete. In this essence, it is important to mark our boundaries before the situation gets out of hand.
Under the circumstances, it is imperative for the authorities in Pakistan to ensure that this investigation gets to the bottom of the matter and its findings are made public so that no such incident occurs in the future.
There is no way to discount the findings of Pakistan Institute for Medical Sciences, who in its medical examination report confirmed there were indeed swelling and rope marks on Silsilah’s wrists and ankles.
The report also said it appeared that Silsila was held for over five hours and there was some swelling in the brain’s rear occipital region, indicating blunt force trauma. The investigators must find out the truth and if the alleged kidnapping did indeed take place, all necessary measures must be undertaken to prevent a repeat of this kind of crime including strengthening of the security detail. The need of the hour is for Pakistan to up its game against those working to tarnish the country’s image internationally and to sour its ties with neighbors.
