Search for Saudi woman, Pakistani driver continue

Haleem Asad

LOWER DIR: According to unconfirmed reports the Islamabad police traced the Saudi Arabian businesswoman and her Pakistani lover in Karachi and took them into custody the other day.

However; the Lower Dir police told this scribe on Thursday that they had no information regarding the couple arrest. A Saudi businesswoman, Hanan Abdullah 37, who eloped with her Pakistani driver Abdul Ahad 22 s/o Shah Tamaz Khan, a resident of Khararai village in Shalkanai Khall went missing since April 18.

The woman, according to sources close to the family, was serving as a bank officer in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), her native country while the man from Lower Dir served as her driver. According to a web channel the woman, Sahoo bint Abdullah Al-Mahboob (real name Hanan Abdullah), is a Saudi businesswoman and owns multiple properties across the world but there is no official confirmation.

The man is already married and he has a daughter too. The news spread like a forest fire when it was circulated on social media platforms a few days ago and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, took serious notice of the matter after the intervention of the Saudi ambassador. Some sources said the KSA ambassador even talked to the prime minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif who directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Inspector General of Police to immediately recover the woman. According to official sources the Islamabad police registered a case of kidnapping the KSA woman against the Pakistani driver Abdul Ahad on April, 18 at Margala police station.

A team of Islamabad police and a CIA team in this regard reached the Lower Dir to recover the Saudi woman. A police raiding team led by the acting district police officer Rashid Khan along with DSP Iqbal Khan and a heavy contingent of police raided the Khararai village here the other day and investigated the case. The officials also met with the area elders and asked for their cooperation in the safe recovery of the Saudi woman.

Several members of Ahad’s family were also taken into custody and interrogated but freed on bail. The couple, according to the family members, had been in hiding for the last several days. “We, definitely, would have handed the couple over to police if we knew their roundabouts”, a relative told the raiding team.

The Lower Dir police continued its search to recover the couple in parts of the Khall tehsil but to no avail. According to sources privy to the development the Saudi woman had fallen in love with her Pakistani driver and she reached the Lower Dir district on April 3 to meet her friend. The couple then toured Karachi and other parts of the country to enjoy the natural beauties of the country. The residents told Dawn on contact that the couple had left the village to avoid police raids when the Islamabad police registered a case against the man for kidnapping the women.

Meanwhile a local resident, while requesting not to be named, told Dawn that the couple had married and the nikah had been solemnized by a religious cleric. However, the Lower Dir police denied any such report and said the couple had not appeared so far in any court for a legal marriage.