SAHIWAL: Police on Saturday recovered a youth belonging to a known industrialist family of Sahiwal who was kidnapped for ransom on Friday, arresting his two alleged kidnappers, who belonged to a banned militant outfit and their facilitator.

According to sources in Farishta family, Abdul Wahab, 22, a resident of Old Civil Lines, went missing on Friday morning, while his mobile phone was found powered off. Later, the family received an SMS from a mobile phone that Wahab had been kidnapped. The caller demanded Rs10 million for his release.

Victim’s father Yahya Ijaz, a businessman, secretly reported the matter to District Police Officer Dr Atif Ikram, who formed a three-member team headed by City Circle Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Gulam Muhammad, CIA police in charge Zafar Dogar and Fateh Sher SHO Imdad Husain to recover the youth and arrest the kidnappers.

The sources said the police asked the family to engage the kidnappers in negotiations. Meanwhile, the police, using GPS and mobile-tracking technology, traced the location, a three-marla house at 82/6-R village, from where the calls were being made by the kidnappers.

On Saturday, police raided the house and recovered the victim who was drugged by his kidnappers -- Bilal Zia and Muhammad Tariq -- who were arrested. The police also arrested Qari Khalil, who rented the house to the suspects.

CIA in charge Zafar Dogar told Dawn the both suspects belonged to banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan and received six-year madressah education.

“Four months back they (suspects) rented the house from Qari Khalil in the three-marla scheme (82/6-R village). They had been planning to kidnap any member of the (Farishta) family,” Mr Dogar said.

He said the suspects had been tracking Wahab for the last 20 days. However, they could not shift the victim out of the district, he added.

Fateh Sher police registered an FIR (233/17) under Section 265-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

DEFAULTER: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) recovered Rs4.66 million from 30 private defaulters of Multan Electric Power Company (Mepco) during the last two months.

According to sources, the defaulters have also been arrested and booked under the law.

They said Mepco had handed over the case of 40 defaulters to the NAB in February-March 2016 for the recovery of Rs8.64 million dues.

The NAB has yet to recover Rs3.96 million from remaining 10 defaulters, they added.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2017