Pakistan lawmaker Mohsin Dawar has sought a “comprehensive inquiry” into the “abduction” of fellow MNA Ali Wazir, who he said was arrested by the authorities in North Waziristan on Monday and taken to an “undisclosed location”, media reports said.
Dawar raised these concerns during a National Assembly session chaired by Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Dawn reported.
“Speaker sahib, early morning today, we received information that our MNA Ali Wazir was arrested near a check-post in North Waziristan,” he said, claiming that “there is no clue regarding his whereabouts”, the report said.
Dawar said Ali’s companions, who were with him at the time of his arrest, were also unaware of the latter’s location.
“Apparently, according to what is being run on social media, Wazir was arrested in North Waziristan but a case against him has been registered at the Federal Investigation Agency’s cybercrime circle in Peshawar,” he told the Speaker, adding that the law and the Constitution had ceased to exist in the country, Dawn reported.
Dawar also requested the Speaker to initiate a probe into Wazir’s arrest and determine his whereabouts. He highlighted that the National Assembly had recently passed a law which required the Speaker’s approval prior to arresting a lawmaker.
“The session is underway but permission was not taken from the Speaker… this means that this was not an arrest, but abduction,” Dawar said.
Separately, Dawar said in a tweet that Wazir’s arrest shows that there is no rule of law in the country, Dawn reported.
“He has been abducted. His whereabouts remain unknown. Speaker NA was not notified of his arrest,” he said.
20230619-180603
