Former Pakistani PM's son Ali Haider Gilani returns home from Taliban captivity after three years

AhlulBayt News Agency - Ali Haider reached Lahore in a special aircraft. He was accompanied by his brother Qasim Gilani

Emotional scenes were witnessed when Ali Haider Gilani met his family at the Lahore Airport after three long years in captivity. His mother, wife, son and brothers are there to receive him at the VIP lounge of the Allama Iqbal Airport.

Ali Haider lifted his six-year-old son in his arms as he met his family. His mother cried tears of joy.

Ali Haider was handed over to Pakistan by Afghan officials on Wednesday. The Afghan defense minister handed over Ali Haider to the Pakistan ambassador in Kabul Abrar Hussain at 10 am, the Pakistan foreign office said. They were taken to the Airport by a helicopter for onward travel to Lahore.

offiPictures released by the foreign office showed a happy and apparently healthy Ali Haider.

He was recovered in a joint operation by Afghan and US forces in Ghazni on Tuesday, three years after he was kidnapped from a pre-election rally in Multan.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office said Afghan security forces defeated an Al Qaeda cell in a joint operation with international forces, and suggested that the discovery of Gilani may have been accidental, Reuters reported.

“During this anti-insurgency operation, Ali Haider Gilani...was identified at the site of the operation, and was freed from terrorists,” a spokesperson said.

The news was first broken by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari in a tweet.

Former PM Yousuf Raza was on his way to a Pakistan People’s Party rally at Bagh Azad Kashmir on Tuesday when he received a phone call from the Afghan foreign office. He then talked to his son. “I talked to my son while I was on my way,” said Gilani, addressing the rally.

Ali Haider was seized by suspected Taliban militants in a hail of gunfire on the outskirts of Multan on May 9, 2013, two days before the general elections in which he was campaigning.

Gunmen on a motorbike opened fire before abducting Ali Haider in a black Honda car. His secretary and a bodyguard were killed and four people wounded. Haider was contesting a seat in the Punjab provincial assembly.

In the three years he was abducted, Haider Gilani was able to contact his family only once through an eight-minute telephone call on May 24, 2015.

His father, former PM Yousuf Raza Gilani, was in Multan along with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) senior leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who also spoke to Ali Gilani over the phone.

Gilani's recovery comes two months after Shahbaz Taseer, the son of slain former Punjab governor Salman Taseer, was freed.

Shahbaz Taseer was rescued from Balochistan in March this year, almost five years after he was kidnapped from Lahore on Aug 26, 2011.




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