BAHAWALNAGAR: The family of a teenage worker, allegedly kidnapped for ransom a week ago, has appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) to take suo moto notice to save his life as his captors have threatened to kill him if Rs10 million ransom is not paid.

The district police are allegedly deaf to the pleas of the family having limited resources.

Muhammad Aslam, 50, a resident of Mohallah Farooqabad, told Dawn that his 18-year-old son Adeel Aslam went missing on June 20 when he left for work to a local sweets shop in the city where he had been employed for the past few months. He said that on his written complaint, the B-Division police registered a kidnap case 24 hours later after checking the CDR of the victim’s mobile number, which confirmed his presence in Sindh.

He said that on June 23, they received a video call from the victim’s phone number in which some masked men demanded Rs10 million ransom to release him and also showed him lying on a floor with his hands and feet tied with a rope. The abductors threatened to kill Adeel in case of not paying the ransom at the earliest, he added.

He said they rushed to the B-Division police station and informed the officials about the ransom call. However, the officials scared them away while asking them to search the victim on their own. Later, they received two more threat calls from the captors to pay the ransom, he added.

Victim’s brother Nabeel said police had advised them to remain silent or contact the Sindh police for the recovery of his brother. The IGP office also did nothing when they called for help on IGP’s helpline 1787 several times. Nabeel further said that during the video call, they showed the kidnappers the condition of their dilapidated house, told them they had limited means and begged them to release Adeel.

However, neither the kidnappers showed willingness to release his brother without taking ransom amount nor were the district police taking measures for his safe recovery.

A senior police official, while requesting anonymity, told Dawn that the victim was trapped by an inter-province gang who was involved in kidnapping citizens, especially youngsters, for ransom by using fake accounts of girls and children on social media. He said the gang members, men and women, first befriended their target through fake accounts, then kidnap them by calling them at the desired place on the pretext of meeting.

He claimed that the victim left the city of his own free will, boarded a passenger bus from Bahawalnagar to Sadiqabad and continuously kept in touch with a phone number registered in Sindh until he landed at Sadiqabad lorry adda.

The official claimed that if the district police had known earlier about the actual case, they would not have registered it. He said police were unwilling to conduct operation in Sindh because of the expenses and efforts involved. He said the family neither had the money to pay to police nor had they any link which could compel police to take interest in the case.

B-Division SHO Maher Abdul Jabbar asked this correspondent to visit the police station to know details about the case. DPO’s spokesperson Shehzad Ishfaq told Dawn that police were investigating the matter.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2022