KARACHI: The kidnapping of Advocate Awais Ali Shah, the son of the Sindh High Court chief justice, kept the security administration on its toes on Tuesday as the provincial authorities held a high-level meeting to decide a course of probe into the high-profile case, set up an investigation team and announced a reward, while the chief minister questioning the role of police and paramilitary Rangers described the incident as a “serious security lapse”.
The son of SHC Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah was kidnapped in Clifton on Monday afternoon, but the law enforcement agencies (LEAs) remained clueless about his disappearance until the family pointed it out hours later. The law-enforcers finally declared the incident a case of kidnapping after collecting evidence and recording eyewitness accounts.
“The kidnapping of Awais Shah from a market of a posh area is a serious security lapse,” said Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah while presiding over the meeting on law and order at CM House.
Car with police number plate suspected to have been used for kidnapping
“How is it possible that four masked men armed with heavy weapons kidnapped a person from the courtyard of a shopping centre at 2.30pm and the police and other agencies don’t know about it until the victim’s family points it out?”
The chief minister directed the Rangers and police authorities to evolve a strategy to recover Advocate Shah and work out concrete measures to ensure a sustainable peace in the city.
The law enforcers remained busy collecting evidence and taking eyewitness accounts to trace the culprits and determine their motive for the kidnapping.
Footage
They examined footage of different closed-circuit television cameras which showed Advocate Shah leaving the city’s prominent supermarket in the afternoon and then a car bearing a registration number of Sindh police moving on roads. It is suspected that the young advocate was taken away in the car after his kidnapping.
Sindh IG A.D. Khowaja, meanwhile, set up an eight-member investigation team under DIG CIA Sultan Khowaja for the probe while separately assigning the task of his safe recovery to the commandos wing of the Sindh Police Special Security Unit.