MONITORING DESK

KARACHI: Senior Journalist Matiullah Jan, who was reportedly abducted by plainclothes and uniforms of anti-terrorism police on Tuesday morning returned home by late night. There were no further details about his return or recovery.

Earlier in the day, Kaneez Shah, Matiullah Jan’s wife, said that her husband was abducted Tuesday morning outside the school in Islamabad where she works.

She told Reuters that school security camera footage showed Jan, who had arrived to collect his wife from work, had been bundled into a car after being cornered by five vehicles - three of them unmarked, one with police markings and the other an ambulance.

“It is clear that he has been abducted. It’s the government’s duty to trace him,” Information Minister Shibli Faraz told reporters in Islamabad.

“We are extremely concerned for the fate and wellbeing of Matiullah Jan,” London-based Amnesty International tweeted.

Jan was facing a contempt of court case for a critical Twitter post about Supreme Court judges, and he was due to appear in court on Wednesday.

“My husband had told me that he could be arrested in the case, but we never expected a kidnapping,” Sughra said.