Akila Naqqash holds a picture of her five year old son Sahil, at her home in Oldham. — AP

GUJAR KHAN Robbers kidnapped a five-year-old British boy after terrorising his family for several hours in their house in Jhelum on Wednesday night. They robbed the house and demanded a ransom for releasing the boy.

According to police, the boy's father Raja Naqash Saeed was waiting for a taxi to leave for airport to take a flight back to Britain after a two-week holiday when the robbers barged into the house.

His uncle Raja Shahid Bashir told police that he had opened the gate of the house at about 11pm to let a taxi in, when at least four armed men entered the house and held the family and the taxi driver at gunpoint.

They were armed with pistols and one of them had hand grenades. According to Bashir, the robbers confined 10 members of the family and the taxi driver in a room and ransacked the house for more than two hours. After looting cash and jewellery, they snatched the boy, Sahil Saeed, and demanded 100,000 pounds for his release. They escaped in the taxi which was found abandoned in another area of the town.

Bashir said the robbers had told the family that they would call them at 7am on Thursday but no call was received. “They have taken away my boy Sahil,” Mr Saeed told reporters, his eyes filled with tears.

Agencies add The boy's mother, Akila Naqqash, broke down and appealed to the kidnappers to free her “sweet little son”.

“All I want is my son back safe, what has he done?” she told Sky News television, sobbing “He's only a little five-year-old boy, what has he done? Just bring him back, please.” But she did not know how to help him, adding “All I can do is just pray.”

Saeed told Sky News that the kidnappers had given a now-passed noon (0700 GMT) deadline to pay the 100,000 pounds but he said he could not pay. “They took me into a separate room and tortured me. They said 'we will take your son and you will have to pay 100,000 pounds',” he said.

“I told them I don't have that much money... I can't afford that.” They took my son. They were fully loaded with guns and hand grenades,” he said, adding that his family was beaten, slapped and kicked by the robbers during a six-hour ordeal.

Police blamed a local gang for the kidnapping and said they had launched a full-scale investigation to recover the child. The attackers probably knew the family and were aware of their imminent departure before dawn on Thursday, Regional Police Officer Mohammad Aslam Khan Tareen said.

“We are interrogating the taxi driver and hopefully the culprits will be traced in the next 24 to 48 hours. Our top priority is to recover the child without any harm,” he said. A report from Islamabad said that the British High Commission was in touch with the family.