SHIKARPUR: A youth was booked after he and his two cousins were located by police to foil their kidnap drama, the Shikarpur police said on Monday.

The three youths, Ghaffar Arain, Abdul Salam and Rizwan Ahmed, had gone into hiding a fortnight back as per their plan to force their families to get them released on payment of ransom to their “kidnappers”, Khanpur DSP Shafiullah Rahu told a press conference at his office.

He said the families had desperately been seeking police assistance after receiving ransom demand from unknown callers. The police, however, reached the “kidnappers” through the callers’ data and their location, he added.

When the police finally reached the callers, they turned out to be the three cousins, who later confessed to have staged the kidnap drama to mint money from their affluent elders, the DSP said.

He said the mastermind of the kidnap drama was Ghaffar, who had successfully staged the same drama about a year ago and made his uncles to pay ransom to his “kidnapper”.

An FIR against him was registered at the Khanpur police station while Abdul Salam and Rizwan Ahmed were handed over to their parents.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2019