The Sindh High Court (SHC) has issued notices to the relevant authorities after a plea was filed seeking the recovery of TikTok sensation Hareem Shah’s husband, Bilal Shah, who mysteriously vanished last month upon his return to Karachi from London.
The SHC has directed the Sindh Home Department, Inspector General of Police (IGP), and other concerned authorities to submit their responses to the court. The plea comes in the wake of Hareem Shah’s claims that her husband, Bilal Shah, had “disappeared” under mysterious circumstances shortly after arriving in Karachi from London.
In a video statement made to Geo News from London, Hareem Shah alleged that her husband had been “kidnapped for unknown reasons.” However, Bilal’s family countered this claim, asserting that he was being questioned in relation to Hareem’s controversial social media posts.
The couple had traveled to London approximately two months ago following a legal dispute between Hareem Shah and fellow TikToker Sundal Khattak.
According to sources in Karachi, Bilal Shah informed investigators that Hareem was not directly managing her Twitter account; instead, someone else was operating it with her permission.
Hareem Shah stated, “Bilal and I were in London, and he went to Pakistan for some work. He was illegally kidnapped by unidentified individuals in plain clothes. We filed a complaint with the local police station, but no one could explain why he had been apprehended. We have also approached the court. Bilal has been unlawfully taken away.”
She added, “I implore law enforcement agencies to locate my husband. He has no involvement in politics or activism, and he has no prior criminal record. We are deeply concerned and going through a challenging time.”
A petition was filed in the SHC against the “illegal detention” of Bilal, allegedly by personnel from law enforcement agencies. Shahzadi Begum, Bilal’s mother, submitted in the petition that her son had been apprehended by law enforcement agencies on August 27 in the Korangi area, and his whereabouts remain unknown.
She claimed that the detainee’s wife, Hareem Shah, a social media activist, believed that her spouse had been arrested due to her political views expressed on social media. Shahzadi Begum emphasized that her son had no involvement in any illegal or criminal activities. She urged the court to instruct the police and other law enforcement agencies to produce the detainee and provide information regarding any pending cases against him.
Hareem Shah, who is currently in the UK, previously faced scrutiny when she uploaded a video on a social media platform claiming to have cleared immigration to travel abroad with a substantial amount of foreign exchange without undergoing checks. This led to a case being registered against her by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). The disappearance of Bilal Shah now adds another layer of complexity to her already controversial situation.
The disappearance of Bilal Shah has sparked concerns and raised questions about the circumstances surrounding his detainment, leaving both his family and the public anxiously awaiting updates on this developing story.
