KARACHI, 11 December 2005 — Reports that 20 employees of the Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) have been missing from a hotel in Karachi for more than 24 hours has caused a sensation here. According to details available from media reports, they have been picked up by law-enforcement agencies.
The PPL staff, who are from Balochistan, had been in Karachi for the past few days in connection with their meetings with the organization’s management. They were staying at Hotel Regent Plaza.
When contacted by Arab News the spokesman for PPL said he too did not know what had actually happened. He did not deny the report but said he would wait and see till tomorrow.
“All I know is that they were here as representatives of the workforce to hold talks with the management about their wages and other work-related issues. The have had their first meeting earlier this week, and their next meeting is scheduled for Monday,” he said.
Reports say the news about their sudden disappearance was broken by a spokesman for the Jamhoori Watan Party at a press conference at which he claimed that the gas company’s employees had been missing since early hours of Friday.
When contacted by Artab News a hotel official said “that we have thousands of guests staying with us all the time. They come and go, but about these particular number of people we do not know about them. However they have checked out .But we will still check about their whereabouts.”
