ISLAMABAD: The capital police on Monday informed the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that the lawyer and his cousins who went missing on June 20 had been ‘kidnapped for ransom’ and they had registered a case against unknown persons.

In his one-page report to the court, the Industrial Area SHO said that the efforts were being made to recover all of them.

The case is based on a petition, filed by Mumtaz Abbasi advocate, in which he alleged that his son Hammad Dadan advocate was picked up along with his cousins Abdullah Umar and Ammar Dadan.

Abdullah Umar, an alleged Al-Qaeda affiliate was involved in the murder of FIA’s prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar’s murder. He was released on bail in July last year by the Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) of Islamabad.

On Monday, secretary defence Mohammad Alam Khattak informed the IHC that Dadan and other two were not in the custody of the spy agency. He, however, told the court that efforts were being made to trace the abducted persons.

Mirza Shahzad Akbar, counsel for the petitioner, on the other hand, contended before the court that his client had received a call from the cellphone number of his son on which some unknown person demanded Rs10 million ransom for the release of his son.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2015

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