New Delhi: Pakistani journalist Anas Mallick, who was reported missing in Afghanistan, has now been located in Kabul and is safe, Pakistan’s ambassador to the neighbouring country Mansoor Ahmad Khan confirmed Friday.
Reports of Mallick — the WION News’ bureau chief in Pakistan — going missing began circulating Thursday night, a day after he had reached Afghanistan to cover the assassination of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Mallick also took to Twitter to inform about his safety, saying, “I am back”. He had sent his last tweet Thursday to congratulate Pakistan’s Commonwealth Games gold medal winner Nooh Dastagir Butt.
Earlier, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said that the office was in touch with the local authorities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani embassy in the country. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto had also shared the information via Twitter.
While confirming Mallick’s whereabouts, Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan Mansoor Ahmad Khan also said that he had personally spoken to the journalist on the phone and that the Pakistani embassy will “remain in touch with him”.
Mallick was in Afghanistan to cover the first anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover of the country. He had reached Kabul Wednesday. He was reported missing the next day after filing a story about the safehouse where Zawahiri was killed in a drone strike. Mallick had recently interviewed Pakistan Foreign Minister Bhutto on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Council(SCO) meeting in Tashkent.
Fellow journalist Mona Khan was one of the first persons to share the news of Mallick’s disappearance Thursday night, in a tweet. She mentioned that his phones were not reachable and no information about him was available with the Pakistan embassy in Kabul, which had begun conducting preliminary inquiries with the Taliban government.
Soon after Khan’s tweet, Mallick’s younger brother Hassan also took to Twitter to request authorities for his safe return. On Friday morning, Hassan said that Mallick had not made any contact with his friends or family for the past 12 hours.
This wasn’t Mallick’s first visit to the region. He had extensively covered the Taliban’s takeover following the United States’ withdrawal last year. Around the same time, Danish Siddiqui, an Indian photojournalist working with Reuters, was killed in August 2021 while covering the clashes between Afghan security forces and the Taliban.
Also read: Who sent how much to Imran Khan’s PTI? There’s Indian-American banker, a cricket firm
Source: The Print
