Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Public Health Engineering Fazal Shakoor Khan remains missing two days after he was allegedly abducted by armed men near the M-1 Motorway toll plaza in Peshawar. An FIR has been registered, and the Peshawar High Court (PHC) is set to hear a petition seeking his recovery on Wednesday, September 23.
Khan, his driver Qaiser Khan and a guard identified in the FIR as Constable Mujahid were intercepted on Monday afternoon, September 21, as the minister travelled from Charsadda toward Peshawar. According to the FIR, armed men, some in uniform and others in plain clothes, stopped the minister's vehicle near the toll plaza, fired at its tyres, and forced the three men out before taking them to an undisclosed location. The vehicle was later found abandoned near the toll plaza.
What the FIR and PHC petition establish
The FIR, dated September 21, was registered at the Chamkani police station on the complaint of the minister's brother, retired Major Anwar Aziz, on kidnapping charges. A day later, the same complainant filed a petition before the Peshawar High Court, through advocate Bashir Khan Wazir, seeking the minister's recovery.
The petition asks the court to direct the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police and other law enforcement agencies to recover Khan, whose whereabouts remain unknown to his family. It also seeks directions for the provincial inspector general of police and the Peshawar capital city police officer to form a high-level inquiry committee to investigate the incident. The KP inspector general, the capital city police officer, the Peshawar senior superintendent of police (Operations) and other relevant authorities have been named as respondents. A PHC division bench is scheduled to take up the petition on Wednesday.
What's alleged versus what's confirmed
KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi told a press conference, alongside senior Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders, that plainclothes men had abducted the minister and opened fire on his vehicle. KP Information Minister Shafi Jan called the incident a direct attack on the Constitution, law, democracy and public mandate in a statement posted on X. Speaker of the KP Assembly Babar Saleem Swati separately accused the provincial police chief of misconduct, alleging that armed and masked men took the minister away in the presence of police.
These are political allegations, not established findings. Neither the FIR nor the PHC petition names a specific perpetrator or agency, and no independent investigation has yet confirmed who carried out the abduction. The identity and affiliation of the armed men remain unverified.
The incident followed a separate case a day earlier involving another KP minister, Shakeel Ahmad, in which the government said he had escaped after coming under fire near Batkhela; an FIR was later registered against Ahmad himself over that incident. The two cases are related in that both involved sitting KP ministers, but they stem from separate FIRs and separate allegations, and Origin Pakistan is treating them as distinct.
What happens next
The PHC's Wednesday hearing will determine what directions, if any, the court issues to police and other authorities to locate Khan and account for the circumstances of his disappearance. The KP Assembly held an emergency session on Monday night, chaired by Speaker Swati and attended by CM Afridi, during which Law Minister Aftab Alam informed the House that the incident had occurred and Interior Minister Tariq Saeed said he had directed the inspector general of police to register an FIR and open an inquiry.
As of publication, Fazal Shakoor Khan's whereabouts remain unconfirmed. Origin Pakistan will update this report as the Peshawar High Court proceedings and the police investigation progress.
