Police on Wednesday night arrested an 18-month old boy’s uncle for abducting him for ransom. One of his accomplices was killed in an exchange of fire with the police while three others escaped.
The child had been kidnapped on October 1 from the house of Taj Mohammad Aslam, a recently-retired headmaster during a robbery. The family had told police that a woman had knocked at the door, asking for help. When they opened the door, three armed men had followed her into the house and taken away gold jewellery, cash and prize bonds worth Rs1 million. The robbers also took away Aslam’s one and a half year old grandson.
On October 2, the kidnappers called the family and demanded a Rs5 million ransom. Muhammad Tayyab, the child’s father who works at a National Saving Centre, negotiated the ransom and the kidnappers agreed to Rs2.5 million.
Tayyab was told to bring the money to a field in Chak 45P near Taranda Sawa-i-Khan around midnight. The kidnappers handed over the child to the father after receiving the money.
Acting DPO Shiraz Nazeer Khan told The Express Tribune that the police had traced the SIM used to make the ransom call. “We arrested the man in whose name the SIM was registered but he said he had not purchased it,” Khan said.
He was let go after the family did not pick him as one of the robbers in an identification parade.
On October 3, the police tracked the mobile phone and set up pickets near the Dari Sanghri bridge. The team came under attack, says Khan, when they signalled two men on a motorbike to pull over. When police retaliated, one of the men – later identified as Mohammad Afzal Sajid – was killed while the other suspect escaped.
The mobile phone used to make the ransom calls was seized. With the help of phone records, police were able to identify the child’s uncle, Mohammad Asif, as a suspect.
Police said he had confessed to the crime, during interrogation, and also told them where he had hidden his share of the ransom, Rs1.4 million, and all the jewellery and prize bonds. Asif told them he had come up with the plan when Aslam told the family about the retirement money he was expecting to receive. Asif said he did not know where his accomplices had run off to.
Aslam told The Tribune he was “heart broken” to learn that his son-in-law had been the mastermind behind the abduction.
“I married my daughter, who is educated and a teacher, to him even though he only has a school tuck shop and is uneducated,” he said, “I never expected he would do such a thing.”
Aslam said he was grateful to the police for not giving up after his grandson’s safe return.
The recovered money, jewellery and prize bonds have been returned to the family.
WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY NOOR MOHAMMAD SOOMRO
Published in The Express Tribune, October 5th, 2012.
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