Former Punjab governor Salman Taseer’s son Shahbaz Taseer has been recovered from Balochistan, nearly five years after he was kidnapped, officials told Geo News on Tuesday.
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It is pertinent to mention here that Shahbaz Taseer was abducted on August 26, 2011 from Gulberg area of Lahore.
The Pakistani military said in a statement that Taseer was found around Kuchlak, a town in western Pakistan in Balochistan province.
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Anwar Kakar, a spokesperson for the Balochistan government, told Dawn that Shahbaz was found to be in good health, physically and mentally. “A single person was there and he told us my name is Shahbaz and my father’s name is Salmaan Taseer”.
He was kidnapped soon after his liberal politician father was assassinated by radical Mumtaz Qadri in January, 2011, due to his stance on the controversial blasphemy law.
No details on the whereabouts of Shahbaz Taseer had earlier been made public.
The then CCPO of Lahore, Malik Ahmed Raza had said that the slain governor’s son’s presence in Lahore can’t be ruled out as the police were pulling out the data from his phones’ call logs.
Qadri was hailed as a hero by Islamists after killing Salman Taseer in Islamabad over the governor’s opposition to blasphemy laws.
The former president expressed the hope that despite this harrowing experience Shahbaz Taseer and the family will remain unscathed emotionally and psychologically and that Shahbaz Taseer will gather himself and move on in life.
“The safe return of my brother is the only victory my family wants”, he wrote on Twitter on 29 February.
Security analyst Imtiaz Gul said it was possible a ransom had been paid and that Taseer had been abandoned by his abductors once they received the money.
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The local Pakistani Taliban and allied militant groups have been waging war against the state for over a decade, killing tens of thousands of people.
