Digging for gold: Rescue operation for treasure hunter halted

Rescue-1122 officials were called 12 hours after his descent on Saturday evening.

MULTAN:

A rescue operation to recover a man who descended 40 feet below the ground level in search of a treasure has been called off and will likely be resumed on Monday morning (today), District Rescue Officer Muhammad Khalid said. 

Zeeshan Qureshi, 20, was apparently advised to look for the treasure by his parents. A soothsayer had told them there was a treasure lying beneath their house.

Qureshi has been missing for 60 hours. His mother called Rescue officials at 6 pm on April 12 when his cell phone lost service, 12 hours after he had last descended into the shaft.

Rescue 1122 sought the district administration’s approval before they started their operation. They started a rescue operation on Sunday morning.

Khalid said Rescue 1122 men had followed the shaft 40 feet down and found two tunnels, one to the left and one to the right.

They said these tunnels were only about two feet wide, and appeared to go on possibly as far as 20 feet. Rescue officials said they had not venture any further due to safety concerns. They would also not have been able to carry any equipment into the tunnels due to their narrowness.

Khalid added that it was difficult to carry out a rescue operation in the area due to high building density, as they could not bring heavy machinery into the area. He said rescuers were planning to dig parallel tunnels from the neighbourhood.

Multan DCO Zahid Saleem Gondal has constituted a committee to finalise the rescue plan. He said he could not have allowed the Rescue personnel to go deeper into the tunnels because it would have put their lives in danger.

Zeeshan’s father, Alam Qureshi, 68, is a resident of Aurangzeb Road near New Delhi gate.

He said three months ago, a pir had visited their house and told them that they had a large treasure under their house. In a statement to the police, the couple said they had told their youngest son to dig under the house.

The son had started digging ten weeks ago, but on Saturday he did not emerge from the shaft.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 14^th, 2014.