Escape by chance: Still in chains, man asks court to register kidnapping case

Court summons Raiwind SHO on butcher’s plea after fleeing captivity.

LAHORE:

Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Ramazan has summoned the Raiwind station house officer (SHO) for today on a petition from a butcher seeking a kidnapping case against some former customers.

Muhammad Farooq appeared in the Sessions Court on Friday with a heavy chain and padlock wrapped around his right ankle, saying he had been detained and tortured for two days. He later told The Express Tribune he had been able to escape because his captors got drunk and fell asleep before tying him up. Farooq, through his counsel Advocate Muhammad Asif Chattha, submitted that Zafar Iqbal, Tanveer, Naveed, Azhar and Bhola had abducted him from his home on July 6 and taken him to their haveli on Raiwind Road. He was kept tied up and in chains, threatened, beaten and deprived of food for two days, Chattha said.

The court then summoned the SHO for today. A court staffer got the lock and chain off Farooq’s ankle.

Farooq told The Express Tribune that the accused had been customers of his but they hadn’t paid him for one year, even though they had been taking meat from him. He said that they had become angry when he had asked for his money.

He said that on July 6, they broke into his home while the rest of his family was at a wedding and abducted him. He said that he was tortured during his two days in captivity. He said that his mother came to the haveli and begged for his release. “They were beating me with clubs and she covered me with her body to protect me, but they beat her too,” he said.

Farooq said that the lock on his ankle was chained to another lock on the wall. But the night before, his abductors had gotten drunk and passed out before securing him to the wall. “I was able to untie the ropes and get away,” he said.

Muhammad Arif, Farooq’s father, said that they and respectable people from their neighbourhood had approached the SHO to register the case, but he had refused to listen to them.

Farooq said that the accused were known criminals and the police protected them.



Published in The Express Tribune, July 9^th, 2011.