Islamabad, March 8

The kidnapped son of a liberal Pakistani governor assassinated by his bodyguard was found, senior officials said today, just over a week after his father’s killer was hanged.

Shahbaz Taseer is in “feeble” health, said Aitzaz Goraya, head of the Counter-Terrorism Department of southwestern Balochistan province, where he was found after a police raid.

Taseer had been abducted by Islamist gunmen from the city of Lahore in August 2011, months after his father Salmaan was killed for opposing the country’s controversial blasphemy laws.

The governor’s assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, was hanged on February 29.

The Pakistani Taliban have never officially confirmed their involvement, but a militant source told AFP today that a military operation in the tribal areas had made it “difficult” for the group to keep him. “That’s why they preferred to set him free,” the source said.

Militant commanders have privately told AFP in the past Taseer was being kept somewhere in the tribal areas of North and South Waziristan. The source today said he was moved after Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched in North Waziristan in 2014.

“Acting on a tip off, intelligence forces and police went to a compound in the Kuchlak district some 25 km north of Quetta” in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, Goraya said.

“We surrounded the compound and we raided it. We didn’t find anyone. A single person was there and he told us my name is Shahbaz and my father’s name is Salmaan Taseer.”

Anwarul Haq Kakar, spokesman for the Balochistan government, told the private TV channel 92 news: “I can confirm that Shahbaz Taseer has been safely recovered. He is in safe hands.”