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Security officials surround Shahbaz Taseer’s car in Lahore yesterday. (Inset) Shahbaz Taseer |
Shahbaz Taseer, who had been given police protection, was abducted from a wealthy neighbourhood of Lahore, the capital of the eastern province of Punjab and considered one of Pakistan’s more liberal cities, while on his way to work.
“Four men in a car intercepted Shahbaz Taseer’s car in Lahore’s upmarket Gulberg area,” police emergency official Syed Mumtaz said.
“They overpowered him at gunpoint and forcibly put him in their car and sped away.” Two other police officials confirmed the information.
The official said police were searching for the car but there was no indication of who may have been behind the daylight abduction.
Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said the Punjab government had provided Taseer with a police escort after his father was killed “but he did not ask them to accompany him today”.
“It was his routine. Sometimes he would go with guards, sometimes not,” he told Geo television.
“The gunmen were young, wearing jeans, they came on a motorbike and in a vehicle.”
He said it was too early to say who the abductors were.
“It is a sensitive issue and any statement at this stage would be premature. We will come to know when the investigations proceed,” he said.
Shahbaz’s sports car was abandoned in the Gulberg area not far from his house. Police investigators were seen examining finger prints on the white Mercedes.
Police said the gunmen did not take his mobile phone and lap top which were still lying in the vehicle.
Salman Taseer was killed by a bodyguard outside an Islamabad coffee shop for criticising the blasphemy law, which provides for the death penalty. It was the highest-profile political killing in Pakistan in more than three years.
Police officials said Taseer’s family had been repeatedly threatened to withdraw the murder case against the police bodyguard accused of his killing.
Senior police investigation officer Razzaq Cheema said that Shahbaz, 27, was on his way to his office from his home when some people on motorbikes and in a four-wheel drive vehicle “intercepted him near an intersection and abducted him”.
US-based Human Rights Watch confirmed the abduction. Its Pakistan director Ali Dayan said the federal and provincial governments “must ensure that the younger Taseer is recovered speedily and his abductors are held accountable”.
“This family has suffered too much already and given the security threats directed towards them in the aftermath of governor Taseer’s death, this kidnapping underscores the failing writ of the state and its inability to provide security even to those known to be at high risk,” he said.