NAROWAL: Sialkot police recovered a newborn boy within 24 hours after he was abducted from the hospital and arrested a couple on charges of abduction.

Zainab Bibi, the wife of Muhammad Asim, a resident of Gadare village, gave birth to a boy in the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital, Daska. An unidentified woman took the baby from his grandmother on some pretext and escaped from the hospital.

District Police Officer Muhammad Hasan Iqbal formed a team, headed by Daska Deputy Superintendent of Police Malik Muhammad Khalil, for recovery of the child.

Khurram Shehzad, the spokesperson for the district police, said the police held investigation with the help of modern technology, human intelligence, geo-fencing and more than 75 CCTV cameras.

He added that with the help of CCTV cameras, police identified the rickshaw in which the child was being taken by the abductors.

Police took the rickshaw driver into custody and on his identification, conducted a raid at a house in village Bombanwala near Daska.

They recovered the child and arrested the kidnappers, later identified as Muhammad Anees and Rafia Bibi, on the spot. The police spokesperson said the suspects were residents of Bombanwala village.

The DPO handed over the child to his parents.

BUSTED: Sialkot police busted an inter-provincial gang of drug dealers, arrested its six members and seized heroin, hashish and imported liquor worth Rs30m from them.

On a tip-off, District Police Officer Muhammad Hasan Iqbal ordered the police team to raid a hideout of the gang. The raiding teams arrested six members of the inter-provincial gang of drug dealers.

The arrested suspects included ringleader Muhammad Younis, Muhammad Shaaban, Ali Mukhtar Ahmed, Muhammad Imran and Ejaz Ahmed. The police seized 450 bottles of imported liquor, heroin and 25kg of hashish worth more than Rs30m from the suspects.

Khurram Shahzad, the spokesperson for the district police, said the police had also recovered motorcycles and cars from the suspects.

He added that the gang had created a network which used to deliver the required drugs to the homes of the citizens on phone calls.

He said that apart from district Sialkot, there was a network of drug dealers in other districts, including Narowal, Gujranwala, Gujrat and Sheikhupura.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2023