CHINIOT: Bhowana police have booked seven suspects, including four police constables,for allegedly kidnapping a trader, threatening to kill his children and extorting Rs480,000 from him,

As per the FIR registered under section 395 of the penal code lodged by Sajjad Hussain Ramana, he was at in his business place when a suspect, Bilal, along with uniformed police constables Fakhar Abbas Chadhar, Zeeshan Nasir, Ali Raza and Ali Sufian, armed with weapons, arrived there.

He says that the suspects pointed their weapons at him, asking him to hand over all the cash he had to them.

The complainant says that he gave them Rs80,000, but the suspects by force took him along in their car.

He says the suspects threatened to kidnap his children who were at the school at that time. They also made a Whatsapp video call showing him their armed accomplices standing outside the school of his children to further threaten him.

They drove him to a bank’s branch in Jhang, where he was forced to withdraw Rs400,000 cash which they kept and left him at a deserted place near Adda Sherabad.

Sajjad demanded the Punjab IGP to take notice of the alleged highhandedness of police constables and order their removal from the service. He also demanded recovery of the looted amount.

Bhowana police claimed to have arrested one of the suspects, Bilal, while all the four constables and two others were still at large.

A police spokesperson confirmed that an FIR has been lodged against the seven suspects.

He says the constables belonged to Punjab Constabulary (PC), that did not fall under the domain of district police. However, he says, raids are underway to arrest the constables.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2024