Dubai return: Kidnapped, sedated, abandoned

Sohail Ahmed, who had been a labourer in Dubai, had returned home for Ramazan and Eid.

MULTAN: A man, kidnapped from Multan six days ago, was abandoned near his house in Khanewal on Sunday, police said. They said he was unconscious. Some passers-by informed his family and took him to district headquarters hospital, where he was later reported to be out of danger. Police said Sohail Ahmed, a resident of Jalalour Peerwala, who had been a labourer in Dubai, had returned home for Ramazan and Eid. They said last week, some unidentified men in a car had kidnapped him from Multan, when he had gone there to buy a return ticket. The kidnappers had apparently mistaken him for a businessman. They had demanded a Rs8 million ransom from the family, police said. Ahmed told police that the kidnappers had starved him and given him heroin injections. He said he had told them that he was a poor man, but initially they had not believed him. After a few days, he said, they put him in a car and threw him near his house in Gulshan Ali Housing Society in Khanewal. He said they did take away the 1,000 dirhams and Rs15,000 he had been carrying.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 22^nd, 2013.