Dubai: A Pakistani expatriate based in Dubai is on a hunt to find his uncle who disappeared from Al Ain more than three decades back.
Adil Ashfaq, who is a network engineer working in Dubai since 2015, was not even born when his uncle Mohammad Tariq Khattak disappeared without a trace.
However, intrigued by the disappearance and seeing how important the matter is to everyone in the family, Ashfaq decided to find out what happened.
According to Ashfaq, Khattak came to the UAE in 1976 and was working at a five-star hotel in Al Ain when he disappeared in 1987.
“My father came to the UAE shortly after my uncle disappeared and since then my family has been searching for him, but we haven’t been successful. Nobody could find any clue and my aunt has been waiting for the last 30 years in the hope that he will come back,” said Ashfaq, who is moved by the plight and faith of his aunt.
Khattak’s family, after searching for him for years had long given up hope, but the 28-year-old Ashfaq has revived the hunt in the hope to solve the mystery.
“It’s really mysterious, the way he just disappeared. Where would he go? What has happened to him? Is he dead? Is he alive? If he is somewhere why isn’t he contacting the family? I want to know and end this nightmare one way or the other. I want to end this wait for my aunt,” said Ashfaq, who is related to Khattak from both paternal an maternal sides.
Ashfaq says since the time he was a child, he remembers Khattak being a major topic of discussion among the family members and he always captured his imagination, motivating him to relaunch the hunt.
“The first thing I did after settling down in Dubai was to look for my uncle’s employers to know more about him. I searched online but was disappointed to find that the hotel where my uncle worked was shut down long time back. So far, I couldn’t find anyone who used to work with him. All I could find out was that a day before he disappeared, he took his passport on the pretext of renewing the document and didn’t come back,” added Ashfaq.
Ashfaq has even approached the Pakistan Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the police in different emirates to see if he could get any information.
“I have approached different authorities and the embassy in the hope that I could glean some information that could take me forward. So far I haven’t been successful, I am hoping to hear back from the embassy soon who are doing their investigation,” said Ashfaq.
As he continues his hunt, Ashfaq hopes he will soon find some clue that could put him on the trail that could eventually lead him to Khattak.
“The problem is it happened so long ago and it is hard to find many people from that period still working here. But I don’t want to lose hope,” said Ashfaq.
Hailing from Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, Khattak was born on January 14, 1956. He disappeared at the age of 31 and, if alive, would be 62 now.
