Airports alerted, raids conducted to arrest fleeing MPA

PESHAWAR: Airports have been alerted while police have started conducting raids to arrest a member of the provincial assembly who escaped from sub-jail at the MPAs’ hostel in the provincial capital.

An official said the Federal Investigation Agency and the airport authorities have been alerted to foil any bid by the lawmaker to leave the country.

A member of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, Faisal Zaman, who was arrested for his alleged involvement in the murder of a leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Tahir Iqbal escaped from the sub-jail at the MPAs’ hostel on Friday.

Tahir Iqbal was killed along with his friend and former councillor Sardar Gul Nawaz on September 13 2020.

Faisal Zaman was one of the accused who was arrested by the police and CTD for his alleged involvement in the murder. He was shifted to Peshawar a few weeks back for an assembly session and was kept in a room of the MPAs’ hostel that was declared a sub-jail. The CCTV footage showed the MPA coming out of the building and boarding a black double cabin pick-up on Friday afternoon. Nothing has been heard about him since then.

No cop of jail or police force was seen in the CCTV footage when the MPA was boarding a car waiting for him. The jail authorities sent a letter to the Peshawar Police saying five cops of the Prisons Department headed by an assistant superintendent along with guards of the local police were deployed at the sub-jail in Room 11 of Block D of the MPAs’ hostel.

A case has been registered in the East Cantt Police Station also mentioning the security officials deployed at the sub-jail.

The spokesman for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif told reporters on Saturday that a committee has been constituted to probe the issue. He said the airports have been alerted while police were taking action.