February 09, 2008	Saturday	Safar 01, 1429

LAHORE, Feb 8: Kidnap for ransom has witnessed a sharp increase in the provincial capital in 2007 compared to the last year.

And there is no let-up in 2008 either, with the kidnap of singer Ali Zafar and his fiancee for a Rs2.5 million ransom from Defence and six-year-old Ayesha from Nawankot for a Rs800,000 ransom recently hitting the headlines.

According to official statistics, some 50 cases of kidnap for ransom were reported during 2007 compared to 34 in 2006, showing an increase of 33 per cent. In 16 of the 50 cases, the kidnappers freed the victims after receiving ransom.

The investigation police could submit complete challans only in 13 (26 per cent) of the cases. Nineteen cases are still under investigation.

In some reported cases, police sources said, the families informed the police after giving ransom and securing the release of their dear ones whereas in many incidents — other than 50 — the families did not report to the police and ensured release of their loved ones after paying ransom.

The figures further revealed that the victims were released in all cases and no casualty was reported last year.

The suspects kept targeting businessmen and influential people, especially their children, and met their objective in most of the cases. At least 15 cases of kidnap for ransom were cancelled either owing to fake FIRs or other factors like kidnapping over enmity.

In January last, singer Ali Zafar and his fiancee were kidnapped, and they were released after their parents paid Rs2.5 million. Police have yet to trace the culprit. In this case, the family did not inform the police when it was negotiating with the kidnappers. They approached the law enforcers only after the kidnapper released the victims after getting the amount.

As for the reasons, the police officials associated with the operations as well as investigation wings ascribe the high incidence of kidnap for ransom to socio-economic factors, non-cooperation from families and a lack of police expertise to handle such incidents.

According to them, saving a victim is the foremost priority and other matters are of secondary importance. “In at least 60 per cent such cases reported in 2007, either relatives or friends were found involved in kidnap for ransom,” a senior police officer told Dawn.

He claimed that organised gangs were negligible in Lahore, but they were certainly operating in other districts. “We have busted only two such gangs, one of them belonged to Kasur, last year which would kidnap people for ransom in Nawankot and Sabzazaar areas,” he said.

He said the department lacked trained police investigators and psychologists and modern gadgets, including telephone tapping system, mobile-phone tracking system and trackers, to deal with kidnappers and identify their location.

“We are completely dependent on agencies and cellular companies to locate the position of kidnappers through cell phones and rescue the victims timely, he said.

Another police official, seeking anonymity, said crime in all categories (including kidnap for ransom) had witnessed increased all over Punjab. Districts like Sialkot, Gujranwala and Gujrat are prominent for having kidnappers’ gangs. Slow pace of busting organised criminal gangs and completing challans in courts were the reasons for the sorry state of affairs, he said.

“One of the most heinous crimes, kidnap for ransom should be on priority of the police, but no serious effort seems to be made.”

DIG (Investigation) Tassaduq Husain claimed that the success rate in tracing the kidnap for ransom cases was over 90 per cent, adding that only three to four cases were under investigation in which the accused had yet to be arrested.

“There is no organised gang operating in the city and the investigation police have busted some of the gangs, but those were operating outside the city,” he said.