LAHORE: A peace activist who disappeared last year has returned to his home in the eastern province of Punjab, his friends said on Friday.

Raza Mehmood Khan, 40, a member of the Aghaz-i-Dosti (Start of Friendship) group that works to build peace with arch-rival India, had not been heard from since Dec.2.

His family had filed a writ of habeas corpus in a court in the eastern city of Lahore in the belief that he had been unlawfully detained by unknown authorities.

But on Friday, one of his friends, Ali Aftab Saeed, said Khan had returned.

“Raza is back,” Saeed said. “That’s the only thing I know.”

Another friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Khan had returned to the city of Kasur in Punjab on Wednesday.

The police declined to comment.

On the day of his disappearance, Khan had spoken at a forum on militancy and posted critical comments on Facebook.

Four activists went missing last year but reappeared after about a month. Two later accused Pakistani military intelligence agents of abducting and torturing them.