PESHAWAR:
Dr Intikhab Alam was rescued from captivity following a shootout, which left a kidnapper dead on Thursday, police said.
City Police Chief Liaquat Ali Khan told journalists at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) that the abducted physician was recovered from Shinwari Town in the city suburbs.
He said the recovery was made possible following police raids in Mardan and Swabi districts in which one man was arrested. The suspect had given police information about Dr Alam’s whereabouts during interrogation.
Khan said that when the police arrived at the place where the physician was confined, the kidnappers opened fire and hurled a grenade at them. A kidnapper was killed during the raid and another was arrested. The deceased was identified as Ajab Khan, an Afghan national.
The police chief said the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of Rs1.5 million and the doctor’s original kidnappers had handed the physicians over to a new gang of Afghan nationals and local criminals. He said the group had no links with militants.
Alam told reporters that armed men kidnapped him from his clinic, blindfolded him and moved him to a place where he was kept handcuffed and his legs tied. He said that the kidnappers provided him food, water, a copy of the Holy Quran and a watch that he had asked for. “I was not tortured by the kidnappers,” Alam added.
The physician from the Lady Reading Hospital was kidnapped from the Hashtnagri area in Peshawar on October 7.
Doctors at the Lady Reading Hospital, the largest in the province, had been on strike since the kidnapping.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 15th, 2010.
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