Six-week ordeal ends: Police rescue kidnapped Palestinian student

Kidnappers demanded Rs50 million ransom.

HYDERABAD:

Police claim to have rescued a Palestinian student of an engineering university who was kidnapped six weeks ago. “We’ve rescued Muhammad Jameel and arrested five suspects,” SSP Hyderabad Fida Hussain Mastoi told a news conference on Saturday.

Muhammad Jameel, a final year biotechnology student at Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, was abducted by armed men on July 17 from Hyderabad Bypass. He was pillion-riding with his friend Yousuf Abudaka when they were abducted. Abudaka, however, managed to escape.

“The kidnappers were demanding Rs50 million ransom from Jameel’s father, Jameel Anaiya, who works in an auto workshop in Saudi Arabia. The demand for ransom was made in around a dozen phone calls made from Quetta and Jhatpat in Balochistan,” the SSP added.

Since the kidnappers didn’t understand Arabic, they asked Anaiya to arrange an interpreter because they do not understand Arabic. “During one of the conversations when Anaiya got furious and called the kidnappers Satan, the kidnappers threatened to kill his son and sell his vital organs.”

The student was recovered from village Rasooli Khoso in Matiari district as a result of the teamwork of eight police stations.  Jameel said he was kept in the village where he was provided two meals a day. “At night, they used to chain me but didn’t beat me,” he said.

The arrested suspects have been identified as Malhar Machi, Ali Gohar, Himmat Ali Jamali, Mushtaq alias Bhau Abro and Ashraf Khoso, from whose house the abducted man was recovered. Four other suspects, Peer Jamali, Zahid Jamali, Sakhi alias Marbo Kator Buledi and Yousuf Khoso managed to escape the scene. Two separate FIRs have been lodged in the police stations of Matiari and Hyderabad districts.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2013.