KARACHI, Sept 3: An anti-terrorism court fined on Wednesday a police investigator Rs100,000 for conducting defective investigation in a kidnapping for ransom case against two accused, earlier acquitted by the same court.

Mohammed Ameen and Abdur Rahman were charged for kidnapping Mohammed Iqbal Khokhar, a travel agent, and his former employee, Tahira, on Nov 21 last year. The ATC-3, however, acquitted the two as the prosecution could not prove its case.

The two accused deposed before the court that complainant Khokhar had obtained a huge amount from them for sending them abroad. Neither he sent the two abroad, nor did he return the money. Instead, he lodged a false case against the jobseekers.

While acquitting the two, Judge Arshad Noor Khan also issued a show-cause notice to the investigation officer, Sub-inspector Chaudhry Mohammed Arif, for conducting improper and defective investigation in the case.

According to the prosecution, the accused kidnapped the victims in Mr Khokhar’s car near Johar Morr within the limits of the Gulshan-i-Iqbal and took the victims to a flat on the sixth floor of a residential plaza in Gulistan-i-Jauhar. They allegedly snatched at gunpoint $1,700 and Rs3,000 from the travel agent and demanded Rs500,000 more. It was also alleged that the accused denuded the hostage woman and made her video film.

Later, the kidnappers allegedly took the two hostages to the ATM machine at the Citibank on Sharea Faisal and drew Rs20,000 through Mr Khokhar’s ATM card as partial payment of the ransom money.

The judge ordered that the investigation officer would have to undergo a one-month term in case of default on the payment.

ACQUITTED: The district and sessions judge, South, Agha Rafique Ahmed, acquitted a man who was re-tried in a kidnapping for ransom case.