CIA arrest gang suspected of 20 kidnappings

Further investigation may lead to recovery of more kidnapped people, says police.

MULTAN:

The Multan CIA police on Friday arrested a gang of kidnappers who they said abducted people by offering them drugged food.

Police said the gang had kidnapped 20 people over the last few months. The kidnapped people have all been recovered.

Police said further investigation might lead to recovery of more kidnapped people.

Police said the gang was arrested on information provided by one Matiullah Muhammad, a driver who worked at a car rental company in Mianwali. Muhammad had been kidnapped by three members of the gang. Some passers-by had discovered him lying chained in a house that appeared to be abandoned.

He told police that three men rented a car from his company. On their way to Multan, they offered him a burger. He said he fainted after eating half the burger.

After he was recovered from a house near the National Highway in Khanewal, he was taken to the Kabirwala tehsil headquarters hospital.

He later contacted the police reporting that he had been deprived of the car, his mobile phone and the money he had been carrying.

CIA police said they had traced the gang through his mobile phone.

They said initial investigations had revealed that the gang had been active in two districts.

They said the leader of the gang had been identified as Muhammad Asif. Two stolen cars were recovered from those arrested.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2013.