One of Pakistan’s most high-profile kidnap victims – the son of the assassinated businessman and politician Salmaan Taseer – has been rescued after nearly five years in captivity.

Shahbaz Taseer, the 33-year-old son of the former governor of Punjab, was picked up by security forces on Tuesday from a restaurant in Kuchlak, an impoverished town in the restive province of Balochistan.

Hours after his rescue, an army spokesman, Asim Bajwa, tweeted pictures of a smiling Taseer who he said was “hale and hearty”.

Latest pics of Mr Shahbaz Taseer taken at Quetta,9:30 PM today.In full protection,he is hale and hearty pic.twitter.com/MqmfYtEzcX — Gen Asim Bajwa (@AsimBajwaISPR) March 8, 2016

Kuchlak is a world apart from Gulberg, the elite neighbourhood of Lahore where Taseer was dragged out of his Mercedes sports car near his office on 26 August 2011 and taken away by gunmen.

The kidnapping came just months after his father was shot dead by one of his police guards, an extremist called Mumtaz Qadri, who was angered by Salmaan Taseer’s campaign against Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws.

Officials described the operation to free Taseer as a “raid” based on intelligence tipoffs, although no arrests were made or shots fired.

The provincial government spokesman, Anwarul Haq Kakar, said members of the counter-terrorism department found Taseer in a backroom of the Al Saleem restaurant, a business in Kuchlak famous for its traditional Baloch food.

“They recovered a young guy with long hair and wearing black clothes who introduced himself as Shahbaz Taseer,” he said.

However, a source within the Balochistan police told the Guardian a deal had been struck with Taseer’s captors.

The version of events told by the restaurant’s owner, Muhammad Saleem, suggested that Taseer had been deliberately released.

He said Taseer had arrived at the restaurant on his own at about 4pm on Tuesday. After ordering and paying for a 340 rupee (£2.30) chicken dish, he asked to use a mobile phone.

Although Saleem refused, a man outside lent Taseer his phone, on which he is believed to have called his family. Shortly afterwards, security forces arrived and took him away.

The army said Taseer was immediately moved to Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan about 25 miles (40km) south of Kachluk, where he was given a medical checkup. He is expected to be reunited with his family in Lahore on Wednesday.

The interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, interrupted his own speech in parliament to share the news of Taseer’s recovery.

It is not known who was holding Taseer, although several militant organisations have been linked to the case. It is common for kidnap victims to be moved around and sold on to different groups.

Intelligence officials believe that although he was originally kidnapped by Lashkar-e-Janghvi, a Sunni militant group notorious for attacks on Pakistan’s Shia community, he was later passed on to al-Qaida before ending up in the hands of the Pakistani Taliban.

Taseer was rumoured to have been held for a time in both North and South Waziristan, “tribal agencies” bordering Afghanistan that for years were effectively ruled by a coalition of terrorist groups, including al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban.

Waziristan has become progressively less hospitable to militant groups following army operations to seize control of the area, possibly forcing Taseer’s captors to move him to Balochistan.

The province is riven with a separatist militancy, as well being one of the parts of Pakistan where the leadership of the Afghan Taliban are known to live among a large population of Afghan refugees.

Taseer, a graduate of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, is not the only high-profile member of Pakistan’s elite to have been snatched by terrorists.

Yousaf Raza Gilani, the son of a former prime minister, is still missing after being abducted from a campaign rally during the 2013 general election in the city of Multan.

The release of Taseer came just over a week after his father’s killer, Qadri, was executed. The hanging was a landmark moment for the country given the strong support Qadri enjoys from a wide section of the public who believe he was right to kill Salmaan Taseer.

Not only had Salmaan Taseer criticised the blasphemy laws as a “black law”, he had lobbied for a presidential pardon for Asia Bibi, a poor Christian woman sentenced to death on the flimsiest of evidence.

On Monday, 17 people were killed in a suicide bombing outside a courthouse in Shabqada. A Pakistani Taliban splinter group said the attack was in retaliation for Qadri’s execution.

There was no comment from members of Shahbaz Taseer’s immediate family on Tuesday. But just days before, following the execution of Qadri, Shahbaz’s brother Shehryar tweeted: “Mumtaz Qadri being hanged is a victory to Pakistan. NOT the Taseer family. The safe return of my brother is the only victory my family wants.”