Daily Times

In the latest development concerning the kidnappings of Shahbaz Taseer, the son of the late Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, and Ali Haider Gilani, the son of former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, is the revelation of the location of both by the home minister of Punjab, Shuja Khanzada. He claimed that, according to latest reports, both the men were currently being held in neighbouring Afghanistan. He also said that government officials were in talks with authorities in that country to help bring back the two who have been lost to their loved ones for so long. Shahbaz was kidnapped in August 2011 and Gilani was taken hostage in May 2013.

First and foremost, this bit of news sends renewed hope to the families of both these men that their sons/husbands/brothers are still alive after so many years in the hands of the brutes that kidnapped them. Secondly, it is time for both Pakistan and Afghanistan to make good on the promise to eliminate terrorism as announced by them on many an occasion after the swearing in of the government of President Ashraf Ghani. The first step in enhancing regional cooperation and beating back the terror threat is to ensure that these two men, the symbol of our persecution by these militants and their raw defiance of all state writ and authority in which even the higher ups are not safe, are brought back unharmed.

Shahbaz Taseer was kidnapped a precious few months after the same militant ideology killed his father in a brutal daylight assassination by his bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri. His kidnapping was the driving home of the fact that all those who belong to a progressive school of thought are not safe and neither are their families in a country overrun by terrorists and their beliefs. Ali Haider Gilani was the final administration of the message to socially forward thinking and secular parties like the PPP to back away from the general elections of 2013, leaving no space for them to campaign and enjoy fair competition. It is vital that these two men be brought back home from the abyss in which they are. We can only defeat militancy if we can begin undoing what the ideology has done to dig its claws into the very fabric of our society. The safe return of Shahbaz Taseer and Ali Haider Gilani is only the first step in this direction. *