Lost and found: Kidnapped 10-month old baby recovered from Machar colony

KARACHI: A ten-month-old boy, who was kidnapped on December 25 was recovered on Thursday.

Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) chief Ahmed Chinoy said this was an unusual case because children of this age are not usually targeted. “Kidnappers take away children who are between the ages of two and 10, but taking away just a 10-month-old baby was new,” he said.

The child’s father Fayyaz works as a contractor and lives in an apartment in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. The baby, Abdullah, was kidnapped on December 25. The CPLC received a tip that Lal Karim, the apartment building’s gatekeeper had been missing since the day of the kidnapping.

Karim was traced in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on December 28 as he was en route to Mardan. The Peshawar police chief was also involved in the case, and Karim was eventually taken in while he was travelling in a bus through the Kohat tunnel.

During interrogation, Karim confessed to being involved in the kidnapping and revealed that his brother Zubair had passed on the baby to a woman in Karachi. The Shahrae Faisal police, in coordination with CPLC, conducted a raid at a house in Machar Colony and recovered the baby.

Chinoy said the kidnapper was caught before he could make a ransom demand. “Karim was planning to make the ransom demand from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but he was caught before he could reach his hideout,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2011.