KARACHI, March 10: An anti-terrorism court convicted on Thursday three accused in the kidnapping case of two minor siblings, who were recovered after remaining in captivity for over 14 months.
Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the ATC-3 sentenced Zulfiqar Ahmed, Safar Iqbal and Sajid Iqbal (both brothers) to life imprisonment. The judge also ordered confiscation of properties of convicts, worth Rs100,000 each.
Jahanzeb, 8, and Komal, 7, were allegedly kidnapped near Carson Complex in Gulshan-i-Iqbal’s block-II on Dec 10, 2001, when they along with their mother were going to their school on foot.
The kidnappers, who also beat up the mother before taking away her children, demanded Rs 2.5 million as ransom. They kept the children in Karachi for four months and then shifted them to the house of accused Zulfiqar in Rawalpindi.
The mother, however, told the kidnappers that she was not in a position to pay ransom amount in lump sump. She agreed to pay the amount in instalments and issued a cheque for Rs250,000 in the favour of absconding accused Mohammad Ashraf.
The kidnapped children came into contact with their mother on the internet. The woman reported the matter to the CPLC, which found out the address of accused Zulfiqar after tracking down the Internet Service Provider (ISP).
A special team of the CPLC and Karachi police raided on March 23, 2003, the house of Zufiqar with the assistance of Rawalpindi police and recovered the two children. Zulfiqar was allegedly arrested red-handed and the two other accused, who are real brothers, were arrested hour later on his lead.
The police initially charged the three accused with abduction under Section 365 of the Pakistan Penal Code and submitted the final charge-sheet in the sessions court. Their fourth accomplice, Mohammad Ashraf, a Navy personnel, was shown absconder in the charge-sheet. The absconding accused sought a pre-arrest bail from the sessions court.
It was alleged that there was a monetary dispute between absconding accused Ashraf and the victims’ father, Zafar Iqbal.
The sessions court, however, transferred the case to the administrative judge of the ATCs at the time of indictment as it involved the offence of kidnapping for ransom. Accused Ashraf, who was on bail, absconded after the shifting of the case to the ATC.
Special public prosecutor Naimat Ali Randhawa appeared on behalf of the state, while Mohammad Ilyas Tanoli and Raheem Khan Bangash represented the three accused.
In his judgment, Judge Arshad Noor Khan lauded the role and services of the CPLC in the investigation. “The internet/email contact between the complainant and the present accused is also one another specific instance of the efforts made by the CPLC”, he remarked.
He further observed that the record of the email spoke about the conversation between the two parties through internet.
“As per the instructions of the CPLC, the complainant chatted with the accused on internet and because of the said tactics the telephone number with which the internet of accused Zafar Iqbal was connected was discovered”, he observed.
