Busted: AVCC, CPLC arrest three members of kidnapping gang

The suspects, including a woman, have admitted to abducting bank managers for ransom.

KARACHI: The Anti-Violent Crime Cell (AVCC), in collaboration with the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC), claimed to have busted on Saturday a gang allegedly involved in kidnapping bank managers.

AVCC chief SSP Muqaddas Haider and CPLC chief Ahmed Chinoy said that three key suspects, including a woman, had been arrested, with weapons and ransom money seized from their possession. Sabra, wife of Talib Tayyab, and her accomplices, Nadeem Abbas and Muzzamil Hussain, were arrested during a raid near Ziauddin Hospital in North Nazimabad. The suspects have reportedly confessed to their crimes. “So far, the gang has been involved in four cases of kidnapping,” said SSP Haider. “Seven more managers of different banks in Karachi and Hyderabad were also on their target list.”

According to the officials, Sabra was the ringleader of the group. “She visited the managers at the bank, gained their trust and then approached them to come out to help her open a bank account,” said Chinoy. “Her accomplices kidnapped them when they left the banks.” He added that the kidnappers then took the bankers to a house in Surjani and released them in a day or two after getting ransom from their families. “On average, they received Rs500,000 to Rs800,000 from each family.”

The two officials claimed that there had been a steep decline in kidnappings in Karachi this year, as compared to recent years.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 30^th, 2014.