Mystery surrounds reported escape of Pakistani Taliban spokesman

Social media is buzzing with questions about the whereabouts of former spokesman of the Pakistani Taliban, Ehsanullah Ehsan.

Ehsan, whose real name is Liaqat Ali, has claimed in a video that he had escaped the custody of Pakistani security agencies. 

Even though the veracity of the statement could not be verified, the statement was reported by most major news outlets.

The Pakistani government and military have neither confirmed nor denied these reports.

Ehsan had been the spokesman for the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan for several years and claimed many high-profile militant attacks including the one on Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.

Liaquat Ali, better known by his nom de guerre, Ehsanullah Ehsan, was a spokesman and a senior commander for the Pakistani Taliban, and later for a Taliban breakaway faction, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.

The TTP banned television, music and girls' education, and burned about 200 schools, in the late 2000s when it held control of some territories if the then-tribal areas of Pakistan. 

TTP, has also threatened attacks against the US homeland and the group claimed responsibility for a failed May 2010 bomb attack in New York City's Times Square.

The TTP, later in September 2010, was placed in the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations. 

The group has lost control of all territory in Pakistan since its December 2014 attack on an army school that killed 132 children Ehsanullah Ehsan had claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the group.

Ehsan surrendered himself to authorities on February 5, 2017.

When the Pakistani military announced his arrest in April 2017, then-Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations Major General Asif Ghafoor had confirmed that Ehsan remained in the military's custody.

In his first appearance after he surrendered to Pakistani forces, Ehsan had said India's intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) provided extensive help to the Pakistani Taliban.