MULTAN / LAHORE: Former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani received a phone call on Sunday from his kidnapped son Ali Haider Gilani.

Talking to newsmen at his residence in Multan, the former prime minister said his son had told him that he was in good health and now living at a better place than where he had so far been kept.

He said it was his first direct contact with Ali Haider since his kidnapping from Multan on May 9, 2013.

“I was in Jalalpur Pirwala when my son Abdul Qadir Gilani called PPP south Punjab general secretary Dr Javed Siddiqi and gave him a number with Afghanistan code and said I could talk to Ali Haider on the number,” he said.

“Then I talked to my son and asked about his health and conditions in which he was living. He told me that he was in good health and had been shifted to a new location better than the earlier place which came under many drone strikes,” he said.

Mr Gilani said he also asked his son about the kidnappers, but he said he did not know them. He said his wife, daughter, son Abdul Qadir and the wife of Ali Haider also spoke to him.

Former prime minister recently requested Afghan president to help get his son freed

The former prime minister said Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi who was sitting beside him also talked to Ali Haider.

Mr Gilani said he and former president Asif Ali Zardari had recently visited Afghanistan and requested President Ashraf Ghani to play a role to get his son freed because Pakistani intelligence officials had been saying that Ali Haider was somewhere in his country.

He said he had also met the president, prime minister and the army chief and urged them to play their role for the recovery of his son and they all assured him of their cooperation.

He said he also talked about the recovery of Shahbaz Taseer, the kidnapped son of late Salman Taseer.

“I am going to Islamabad on Monday to meet relevant authorities. There was, however, no meeting scheduled with Army Chief General Raheel Sharif,” he said.

Mr Gilani said that earlier he had been in indirect contact with his son, but it was discontinued a year ago.

He said that a man named Javed Paracha, who spoke on behalf of Abu Yazeed, had told him that he had been holding Ali Haider in captivity.

“Paracha gave me an audio recording of Ali Haider, but later he disassociated himself from Abu Yazeed, and a new mediator, a former student of a seminary, gave me a video recording in which my son said that he had been kidnapped by Mujahideen and their demand should be met for his recovery.”

He said a retired army general had informed him that the kidnappers had demanded release of some women and children belonging to families of Al Qaeda men. It was an indirect demand and no direct demand had been made by the kidnappers, he added.

The former prime minister said that instead of having direct negotiations with the kidnappers he would prefer to engage Pakistani intelligence agencies to get his son released, adding that he had full confidence in the intelligence agencies of the country.

The government had received a video last year showing Ali Haider in chains and the kidnappers demanding Rs2 billion for his release. Later they reduced the ransom to Rs500 million.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2015

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