Pak looks for Badal`s missing relative in Punjab

Pakistan launched an investigation to trace Rajvindar Kaur Gill, Canadian citizen of Indian origin, relative of Sukhbir Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister of Indian Punjab, who went missing in Lahore.

Lahore: Pakistan has launched an investigation to trace a distant female relative of Sukhbir Singh Badal, the Deputy Chief Minister of Indian Punjab, who has been missing in Lahore for the past two-and-half months. Rajvindar Kaur Gill, a Canadian citizen of Indian origin, went missing shortly after she arrived in Lahore last August to attend a conference. Her father, Sikandar Singh, wrote a letter to Badal, seeking the Deputy Chief Minister`s help in finding his daughter. Badal handed over a copy of the letter to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif during his visit to Lahore earlier this month. "Dear brother, since I know you have strong relations with the Pakistan Punjab Chief Minister, we are optimistic that she will be brought to home safely," Singh wrote in the letter. Singh further wrote that he had served in the Indian Air Force before moving to Canada 13 years ago. Other members of his family, including Rajvindar, who is in her 30s, joined him in 2007. "My daughter then moved to Switzerland after she got a job in a bank in Zurich. She went to Lahore to attend a conference in August 2012 and remained in touch with me for a few days. "She also went to Gurdwara Janamasthan, Nankana Sahib. She told me that she was going to meet a journalist, Iqbal Hussain of News One, before we lost contact with her," Singh wrote. Imdad Bhatti, a journalist of the Urdu daily Jang, told PTI that Singh had spoken to him by phone from Canada. He quoted Singh as saying that his daughter had fallen in love with a man on the Internet who had introduced himself as Krishna from Lahore. Bhatti said Singh had told him that his daughter went to Lahore to meet Krishna. It was not clear whether Krishna "was an imposter or not". After learning of the incident, Chief Minister Sharif ordered the Punjab Home Department to look into the matter. The department subsequently wrote to provincial police chief Haji Habibur Rehman and intelligence agencies to look into the matter. Rehman told reporters that an investigation into the matter was underway. "I cannot say anything on it at the moment as the investigation is underway," he told a news conference in Lahore yesterday. An official of Punjab Police told PTI that Kaur had stayed at Hotel One in Gulberg area before she disappeared. The official, who did not want to be identified, said: "We have taken the record of her stay at the hotel and launched further investigation". Asked whether there was a possibility that Kaur may be in custody of intelligence agencies, the official said: "It is a sensitive matter and let the probe be completed". PTI