Pakistani journalist, Taha Siddiqui escapes kidnap attempt by armed men in Islamabad

A Pakistani journalist narrowly escaped being kidnapped by armed men in an incident that came months after he complained of being harassed by the security services. Taha Siddiqui reports for France 24 and is Pakistan bureau chief of Indian television channel WION. “I was on my way to airport today at 8:20 am when 10-12 armed men stopped my cab & forcibly tried to abduct me. I managed to escape. Safe and with police now,” Siddiqui tweeted from a friend’s Twitter account early in the morning. “Looking for support in any way possible #StopEnforcedDisappearances,” he added in the same tweet.

Taha Siddiqui, a Pakistani journalist, was beaten and threatened, and only escaped by running through oncoming traffic. pic.twitter.com/odsasHDa85 — Asad Hashim (@AsadHashim) January 10, 2018

Rights groups have denounced the kidnappings of several social media activists over the past year as attempts to intimidate and silence critics of the Pakistan’s security establishment. Last year, five Pakistani bloggers went missing for several weeks before four of them were released. All four fled abroad and two afterwards told media that they were tortured by a state intelligence agency during their disappearance. The military has staunchly denied playing a role in any enforced disappearances, as has the civilian government. In the past, militants have also targeted journalists. Siddiqui spoke to Reuters from a police station where he was filing a report on the incident, and described how his taxi was stopped on the highway when another vehicle swerved, and braked suddenly in front of it. About a dozen men armed with rifles and revolvers pulled him out of the cab, beat him and threatened to kill him. “They threw me in the back of the vehicle in which I had been travelling, but the door on the other side was open,” Siddiqui said. “I jumped out and ran and was able to get into a taxi that was nearby, whose driver then floored it,” he added. Siddiqui last year filed a court petition to stop the agency from harassing him. -PTC News