Safe return: Police trace kidnapped six-year-old

Anti-Violent Crime Cell and Citizens-Police Liaison Committee conduct operation, arrest two kidnappers.

KARACHI:

Six-year-old Rehan Paracha, who was kidnapped from North Nazimabad on January 21, was traced and his kidnappers, Ali Gauhar and Mehran Khan, were arrested, during a joint operation conducted by Anti-Violent Crime Cell and Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) on Wednesday.

Rehan was kidnapped from a van while he was on his way to tuitions. His father, Saleem Paracha, told The Express Tribune that two armed men on motorcycles intercepted the van and abducted him. “We registered an FIR immediately after the incident occurred,” he added.

CPLC chief Ahmed Chinoy explained that the kidnappers called Paracha and demanded Rs5 million as ransom but were brought down to Rs1.3 million after negotiations. The police arrested the culprits when they came to collect the ransom money from the family on Super Highway, Sohrab Goth.

The chief of the crime cell, Niaz Khosa, explained that the culprits were injured in the gunshots exchanged between them and the police. Police were able to trace the boy from a house in North Nazimabad using the information provided the kidnappers, however, two of the suspects escaped.

He also mentioned that the Gauhar and Khan are professional kidnappers who also confessed to kidnapping a child in 2011 from Nazimabad in exchange for one million rupees from the child’s family.

The cases against them have been registered and they are being investigated, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2013.