Two brothers who are former students of the Jamia Fareedia madrassa, a subsidiary of Lal Masjid, said on Sunday that an intelligence agency personnel kidnapped, tortured and kept them in custody for one week. “We were picked up from a Raja Bazaar restaurant by plainclothes personnel on May 13 and one of them told us that they belonged to an intelligence agency,” Hafiz Anwarul Haq told a press conference at Lal Masjid with his brother Hafiz Israrul Haq and father Muhammad Anwar. “They blindfolded us and took us to an unknown place where they first took off our clothes and then tortured us,” Anwar said. Both brothers alleged that the intelligence personnel abused them and threatened to rape their sisters. Anwar said that intelligence officials asked them about the routine of Maulana Abdul Aziz and sought their help in arresting the Lal Masjid cleric. He said the kidnappers took them blindfolded to the Bhara Kahu jungle on Saturday and freed them. “They told us to go wherever we want to and also told us not to disclose this incident to anyone, especially Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the deputy cleric at Lal Masjid, saying that ‘he will not be there to help you if we pick you up again’,” he said.
Israr said that he saw a man in military uniform around him during his detention. “I asked the kidnappers to release me so that I could attend my National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) office job and meet my ailing mother, but they didn’t agree,” he said.
Muhammad Anwar, who is a retired school headmaster, said President General Pervez Musharraf, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao and intelligence agencies would be responsible if anything happened to him or his family.