Mumbai: After media reports started pouring in about the ex-COO of Balaji Telefilms Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan on Saturday stating that he was allegedly killed by a Kenya-based group, after being missing since July. The family of Zulfi is adamant about not believing in any speculations and will wait for Indian authorities and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to contact them for facts.
As per a close aide of Zulfi’s family, the family and the close ones are only reading ‘kinds of stuff’ on the internet.
“We are brushing off all this apparent factual stuff that’s going on the internet. As of yet (Saturday night), we have not heard a single thing from the government or the MEA. Until that happens, everything is simply speculation and a mere noise for us,” that person told this newspaper on Saturday.
Zulfi, an Indian national and a resident of Mumbai worked as a senior executive at Star and Balaji media houses. The 48-year-old old went missing in Kenya on July 21, where he had gone on a vacation.
Recent media reports from Kenya, say that Zulfi and his friend, Mohamed Zaid Sami Kidwai, who were allegedly part of the Kenya Kwanza digital campaign team, went missing alongside a taxi driver Nicodemus Mwania from Mombasa Road in July.
In the report, it says that Dennis Itumbi who is a close aide of Kenyan President William Ruto has publicly acknowledged that the missing Indians, Zulfi and Kidwai, were killed by the disbanded DCI Unit. According to Itumbi, the DCI Unit used to kidnap, assault, maim and kill innocent people.
Through two Facebook posts, Itumbi said, “They targeted those who supported the election of Ruto as president. […] Zaid and Ahmad were just good people who became my friends and in the process connected with some in our team. Two days before they returned home, I learnt that they had lost their phones during a night out, I wanted to laugh at them so I went to a place where we used to meet – they had not been seen. They could not be reached. […] In this case, they killed people whose only mistake was to be our friends.”
In the second post he said, “Zaid and Ahmed decided to have a dance that night, it was a great night. As they left, later that night, they called a cab. Evidence shows them getting into the cab, minutes later, a vehicle, the ones used by the ROGUE DCI Unit blocked the cab. Zaid and Ahmed are dragged into the car, their cab driver too. One of the men then takes control of the cab. The trio is then held in a killer waiting bay – a container used to slaughter Kenyans in a police station for the last few years. After three days, the trio are put in a vehicle towards Aberdares.. Investigators are following clues from there.”
Meanwhile, the person whom this newspaper spoke to who is close to Zulfi denied his association with the president or the alleged election campaign mentioned above by Itumbi.
The MEA had previously said that they are keeping a close watch on the situation and that they are in touch with the Kenyan government.
The petition by Zulfi’s family and friends at change.org says that before July 21, Zulfi was active on his social media, while also having conversations via telephone with his friends and family.
“We enjoyed watching his social media posts of breath-taking Masai Mara and all the amazing food he was having. In his telephone conversation with friends, he said he was going to return on July 24 but planned to be back towards the year-end to witness the Great Migration across the Mara River. But after July 21, he was not active on social media and even on WhatsApp,” the petition stated.
