The Delhi High Court Wednesday asked the Centre to file a status report “positively” within three weeks to a woman’s plea who has claimed that her brother, media professional Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan, has been missing since last year and is “detained in Kenya”.
A single-judge bench of Justice Subramonium Prasad in its order noted, “Notice was issued on July 12. Status report has yet not been filed. Let status report be positively filed within three weeks.” The plea is next listed on September 4.
The plea seeks a direction to the respondent Centre, through the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs, to take cognizance of the complaints and representations, and to investigate/inquire into the matter in an expeditious and efficient manner. It also seeks a direction to the Centre or any other relevant authority to use all possible channels to coordinate with the Kenyan authorities to ascertain the whereabouts of the petitioner’s brother.
The plea states that 49-year-old Khan, a media professional who has previously worked with Balaji Telefilms, Eros, and Warner Brothers, had travelled to Kenya on a tourist visa on June 24. It further states that on July 22, Khan and his friend were around the Westlands, Ole Sereni, when some people claiming to be police officers “unlawfully and arbitrarily” intercepted their vehicle and hijacked it.
“To the best of the knowledge of the petitioner and their family, they are being detained on the authority of and on instruction of Kenyan Local Police…the Petitioner has no information as to where her brother, his friend and driver are as of today, whether they are alive or not and whether they are kept in custody,” the plea states.
The plea states that the wife of Khan’s friend who was travelling with him filed a report on July 23 with the local police in Kenya and informed the Indian Embassy in Nairobi; a Habeas Corpus Petition in the High Court of Kenya at Nairobi was also filed.
“The kidnapping allegedly seems to be politically motivated due to which despite numerous efforts, which are still ongoing, made by the Petitioner and the rest of the family before the Kenyan authorities, not much help is forthcoming. Neither is the family being informed about the status of the investigation or nor is any other information forthcoming from the Kenyan authorities either,” the plea adds.
