KARACHI: Eminent neurosurgeon Dr Aftab Qureshi was allegedly gunned down by his kidnapper during a joint rescue operation supervised by the CPLC chief and senior police official, an officer of superintendent rank, who is the head of the Anti-Violent Crime Unit (AVCU) of Karachi. This happened on the morning of May 30, and during the rescue operation an ASI of Karachi police and a kidnapper were also killed.
According to a report, the CPLC chief was quoted that two other hostages in the captivity of kidnappers managed to escape taking advantage of heavy firing from both sides. This, however, goes to show that the rescue team was not aware of the presence of these two hostages before launching the operation to rescue Dr Qureshi. If that is indeed the case then one can say with some justification that the raid was carried out in an unplanned and unprofessional manner and quite clearly, it was a botched rescue operation.
In ancient times, kidnapped victims were normally rescued by use of physical force. But today, to tackle a kidnap-and-hostage situation with use of physical force may be disastrous for the victim. That is why many countries have specialised law-enforcement personnel who deal with negotiating kidnappers, so as to minimise the chance of a police raid, in which lives could be lost. What this rescue operation shows is that the CPLC and the AVCU both need to employ the services of such people since cases for kidnapping and ransom are not going to go away any time soon.
Sqn-ldr (retd) S Ausaf Husain
Published in The Express Tribune, June 5th, 2012.
