October 23, 2008	Thursday	Shawwal 23, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 21: There has been no headway in the kidnapping of Satish Anand, a prominent filmmaker and distributor, as the victim remained untraced for the third consecutive day on Wednesday.

A joint team of the Anti-violent Crime Unit of the city police and the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee was constituted to investigate the kidnapping of Mr Anand.

He was kidnapped on Monday near the Hockey Stadium at around 11am when he was being driven to his office from his DHA Phase-2 residence.

About half an hour later, the victim’s driver was found unconscious in Mr Anand’s car near Kalapul.

A member of the joint investigation squad, who did not want to be named, told Dawn that the investigation of the case (FIR 229//8) had been transferred to the AVCU.

The FIR was registered against unknown culprits on the complaint of Aziz Parsani, an employee at the victim’s office, at the Frere police station.

The victim’s driver, Gul Baig Bugti, told the police that three men signalled him to stop and they held him hostage at gunpoint as he pulled over.

The 30-year-old driver, hailing from Obaro, Rahimyar Khan, stated that two of the armed men got into the rear seat where Mr Anand was sitting, and the third one pushed him to the front passenger seat and took the control of the steering wheel.

The driver told the investigator that he received a massive shock in his arm and then he immediately become unconscious.

Sources said the driver was still in the custody of the police. They said the investigators did not rule out Gul Baig’s involvement in the case as he was not made complainant in the case.

The sources said the doctors who examined the driver told the investigators that he was indeed injected with a high doze of sedative.

However, the sources said, the doctors stated that a person could not go unconscious immediately if he was administered the dose through intramuscular. They said it could happen only if the dose was injected into a vein.