KARACHI: The brother of Anas Mallick, a Pakistan journalist who had disappeared in Afghanistan after arriving there earlier this week to cover the one-year anniversary of the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, said he was “safe” and would likely be returning to Pakistan today, Friday.
Mallick works for WION, an Indian multinational English news channel headquartered in New Delhi. On August 3, the journalist tweeted that he was in Kabul on a reporting assignment. On Friday morning, his younger brother Hassaan Mallick said on Twitter that he had been missing since Thursday afternoon.
Speaking to Arab News on Friday afternoon, Hassaan said Mallick had returned to his hotel in Kabul and was likely to fly back to Pakistan today.
“He hasn’t revealed as what has happened to him,” he said, adding that he would share more details with media at a later stage.
Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan Mansoor Ahmed Khan also said he had spoken to Mallick and he was “safe.”
The foreign office had said earlier in the day it was in touch with Afghan authorities and working to ensure the journalist’s “early and safe” return to Pakistan.
Since the Taliban takeover of Kabul last August, the United Nations and the United States have repeatedly raised concerns about what they call credible reports of journalists from local Afghan media organizations being detained and beaten.
In April, the Taliban released an Afghan-American humanitarian-aid worker, along with his brother, after several months of captivity, resolving one of the many disputes creating friction between the then new Afghan government and Western nations withholding financial support from the war-torn nation.
Fears for the safety of vocal opponents of the Taliban, prominent women and journalists in general rose after the Taliban group took over the country in August as foreign forces withdrew. Many civil society and women’s rights activists fled the country.
