Former Pakistan Army officer abducted by RAW: sources

ISLAMABAD: Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was involved in the kidnapping of Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Muhammad Habib Zahir, sources told Geo News on Thursday.

Reports of the former Army officer being abducted by RAW in Nepal emerged hours after the Foreign Office said that it suspected an enemy intelligence agency's involvement in the abduction.

Lt Col (retd) Zahir went missing from Nepal where he had travelled to after being lured with a job offer. He last contacted his family on April 6.

A First Information Report (FIR) registered by his son, Saad Habib, says that Zahir was received by a man named Javaid Ansari at the airport in Kathmandu on April 6.

Habib said that no contact was made by his father after that.

Earlier, a probe by Zahir’s family and friends reportedly showed that he received an interview call from a UK telephone number generated via the internet. According to reports, the website stratsolutions.biz was hosted by BigRock.in, which is registered in India.

Lt Col (retd) Zahir had retired from Pakistan Army in 2014. During his service, Zahir also worked with United Nation’s peace mission for two years. Zahir then joined a Pakistani food company and was currently looking for other job offers.

He was contacted by a man named Mark Thompson who offered him a job which had been listed on the website stratsolutions.biz. Thompson had called Zahir for an interview to Nepal.

On Thursday during the weekly briefing, Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria expressed fear that the former Army officer might have been abducted by an enemy intelligence agency.

"We have brought Lt. Col (r) Zahir's case to the Nepali government's attention," Zakaria said. "The Indian prime minister admitted that the country was involved in dividing Pakistan in 1971."