LAHORE: ‘Encounter specialist’ former inspector Abid Boxer is in the custody of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities, a senior official of the Interior Ministry told Dawn on Tuesday.

He said the UAE had written to the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) on Feb 12 that it had detained Abid Hussain, commonly known as Abid Boxer, and sought exchange of documents for his extradition to Pakistan.

“Through the extradition process, one sovereign jurisdiction typically makes a formal request to another sovereign jurisdiction (“the requested state”)”, the official added.

He said if the fugitive was found within the territory of the requested state, then it could arrest the fugitive and subject him or her to its extradition process. Denying that Abid Boxer had reached Karachi airport from the UAE or any other country, the official called the reports “unauthentic”.

Sharing details, the official said Abid Boxer had been placed on Exit Control List (ECL) after he had fled from Pakistan in around 2008. According to rules, the duration for keeping someone on ECL was two years hence Abid Boxer was not on the list anymore.

He further revealed that Abid’s name had also been added to the ‘Black List’ for five years and even that had expired during the tenure of former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar.

“Now the suspect is not on the Black List even,” he said, adding that the Federal Investigation Agency had nothing to do with this list as it was solely dealt with by the Interior Ministry in Islamabad.

The ministry official said Karachi airport had reported only the departure time of Abid Boxer when he had fled abroad. However, the information pertaining to his arrival was not correct as no record was available at that airport.

Termed ‘encounter specialist’, Abid Boxer remained a notorious police officer for carrying out a number of encounters in Lahore. He was wanted to the Lahore police in criminal cases lodged under murder charges as well as for defrauding people.

Lahore police had contacted the Interpol through FIA to bring Abid back to Pakistan to proceed against him under the law.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Information Secretary demanded the former policeman not be handed over to the Punjab government fearing he could be killed in a bid to eliminate evidence of extrajudicial killings in Punjab allegedly committed on the orders of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

Instead, he said, a joint investigation team should be constituted to probe allegations against Abid and he be given in the custody of security agencies.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2018