QUETTA, April 24: The leader of a gang involved in kidnapping Balochistan’s doctors for ransom has been arrested from a hotel in Karachi. This was revealed by Dr Sultan Tareen, chief of the Pakistan Medical Association’s Balochistan chapter, here on Wednesday.

Talking to reporters, he said: “So far, 90 suspects belonging to different networks involved in targeted killing of doctors and kidnapping them for ransom have been arrested from Mastung, Kalat, Khuzdar, Quetta and other areas, while the commissioner of Kalat went to Karachi along with police and Levies personnel and apprehended the head of a gang from the Pearl Continental Hotel after receiving intelligence reports about his presence there.”

The PMA leader said three kidnapped people belonging to the Hindu community were recovered from Mastung when law-enforcement personnel arrested a gang for abducting doctors for ransom.

He said members of a gang arrested from Mastung had been handed over to the Crime Branch in Quetta and there had been reports about alleged links between them and some personnel of Levies Force in their district.

He alleged that police had desisted from interrogating a gang arrested from Kalat division. “Then Lahore Deputy Commissioner Noorul Amin Mengal, whose father was kidnapped for ransom, immediately reached Quetta and police initiated interrogation after his intervention.”

Dr Tareen said the arrested gangs were involved in kidnapping doctors, traders and Hindus and they had admitted before police that they enjoyed patronage of tribal chiefs.

He said the doctors who had been freed by kidnappers after payment of ransom were yet to receive compensation from the government.

He thanked the Supreme Court and Balochistan High Court for issuing strict orders for the arrest of kidnappers.

“Balochistan’s doctors got rid of fear after the caretaker government took over in the province,” he said.

However, he alleged, a senior bureaucrat in Balochistan ordered registration of an FIR against protesting doctors and subjecting them to torture.