Missing woman journalist reaches home after two years

LAHORE: Human rights activist and journalist Zeenat Shahzadi who had gone missing returned home Friday after two years, The News has learnt.

Sources claim that she was recovered from Pak-Afghan border region on Wednesday night.   Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal, the head of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearance, told foreign media thatZeenat Shahzadi was abducted by non-state actors and enemy intelligence agencies. Tribal leaders from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan played an important role in Shahzadi’s release, he said.  Shahzadi had disappeared on August 19, 2015, when she was on her way to appear before the commission hearing the case of a missing Indian national Hamid Anasari, an alleged Indian spy.

Shahzadi returned to her home in Lahore on Friday morning, Commission’s Secretary Fareed Ahmad Khan confirmed while talking to The News. He did not comment when asked about the mental and physical health of Shahzadi. 

It is said that Ansari went missing in 2012 in Pakistan and Shahzadi had been pursuing his case on behalf of his mother. She was connected with the mother of the Indian national in Mumbai through social media. She had filed a petition in the court regarding Ansari on the behalf of his mother as well. 

On August 19, 2015, Zeenat was going to attend the hearing of the case in Lahore when  few men in two cars picked her up. Shahzadi is the only woman listed among missing persons since the Commission started its job.