Afghanistan Times
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Karzai seeks Islamabad cooperation in Wahidi’s release
AT-KABUL: Former President Hamid Karzai expressed his deep concerns over the abduction of former Herat governor Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi in Islamabad, his office said Saturday. Wahidi was in Pakistan capital to take British visa.
“Karzai asked Pakistani government to use all possibilities for the release of this respectable elder and not to spare any efforts,” it said in a statement, adding that the former president also asked the British government to issue visa for Afghans in its embassy in Kabul, so they do not have to go to the third country for the visa.
Furthermore, the foreign ministry on Saturday also expressed concerns over kidnapping of former governor Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi in Islamabad, asked Pakistan authorities to do their bestfor his freedom.
Some unknown gunmen kidnapped Wahidi sitting with his grandson at a restaurant in Islamabad on Friday.
Wahidi was serving as governor of Kunar and then in Herat provinces under ex-president Hamid Karzai.
“The Afghan foreign ministry is strongly concerned over the abduction of former governor of Herat province Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi in Islamabad,” the ministry said in a statement.
The foreign ministry called on Pakistani government to take serious steps in finding and freeing Wahidi.
This is not the first time that Afghan officials are kidnapped in Pakistan. Some seven years ago, senior Afghan diplomat Abdul Khaleq Farahi was kidnapped by a group of gunmen in the Pakistani tribal areas. He was freed after two years in the abductors’ detention.
Farahi was serving as Afghan charge de affairs in the Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa state. There are conflicting reports about his release.
