Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf social media activist Arshad Siddiqui missing since Sunday: PTI spokesperson

INTERNATIONAL DESK: A Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) spokesperson has claimed that PTI social media activist Arshad Siddiqui has been missing since Sunday morning and police are yet to tell his family about his whereabouts, Pakistan-based The News International newspaper reported.

“The disappearance of PTI social media member Arshad Siddiqui is alarming. He is a resident of Karachi’s Mahmoodabad and left his residence at 8 am to go to work. However, the police have not revealed any information regarding Arshad’s arrest so far,” Member of the Provincial Assembly (MPA), Shahzad Qureshi, said in a statement issued on Monday, The News International newspaper reported.

According to the statement, the attitude of the police in Siddiqui’s “abduction case” was unsatisfactory. “There is a smell of political revenge behind the mysterious disappearance of Arshad Siddiqui,” it stated.

PTI parliamentary leader in the Sindh Assembly Khurram Sher Zaman in a statement appealed to the chief justice of Pakistan to take suo motu notice of political vendetta. More than 30 hours have passed, but Arshad Siddiqui has not yet been recovered, he said.

Zaman alleged that the Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government was directly involved in the kidnapping of PTI workers. Siddiqui’s arrest had not been disclosed nor had he been presented in any court yet, he said, adding that the government could not however discourage those who loved Imran Khan, according to The News International newspaper.

He said it is shameful to arrest and harass youths, as the arrests of youths in Pakistan are sending a negative message to the world. Sindh PTI president and former federal minister Ali Zaidi said our social media team member Arshad Siddiqui had gone missing from Karachi, and his disappearance was a kidnapping case. If the imported government was behind Siddiqui’s disappearance, it would cost them dearly.

Aftab Siddiqui said the mysterious disappearance of PTI’s social media team member was unacceptable and the Sindh government should recover him. (AF)