KARACHI: A young woman identified two men as the persons who had kidnapped her for ransom from Defence Housing Authority in 2019.

Accused Muzaffar alias Moozi, Zohaib Qureshi, Tariq alias Shakeel, Waseem Raja alias Kamran and Fayyaz Solangi along with absconding former policeman Agha Mansoor have been charged with kidnapping for ransom two girls, Dua Mangi and Bisma, from DHA in 2019.

Ms Mangi appeared before Anti-Terrorism Court-II for recording her testimony against the accused recently.

She deposed that accused Muzzafar and Raja had abducted her in November 2019 and also shot her friend Haris Soomro, when he put up resistance to the kidnapping attempt.

She further deposed that later the accused set her free after receiving ransom from her family.

She also rightly picked out the two men as accused in the courtroom. However, she did not identify Solangi, who is charged with having provided a car to the main accused for kidnapping her.

During the hearing, the court was informed that the investigating officer of the case, Inspector Ayoub Pathan, could not appear in court since he was on 10 days sick leave.

After recording statement of the victim, the judge summoned other prosecution witnesses for recording their statements on Oct 27.

Meanwhile, the same set of accused have also been charged with abducting 20-year-old woman Basma from the same area in DHA in May 2019.

When the matter came up for hearing, Muhammad Saleem, the father of Basma, appeared in court for recording his statement.

The witness deposed she was abducted by the same set of the accused from the DHA in May 2019.

The witness further deposed that he had lodged a case regarding abduction of his daughter after she went missing and was later got freed from the clutches of the accused after paying ransom.

After recording his testimony, the judge summoned other witnesses for recording their testimonies on Oct 23.

In the meanwhile, the court declared absconding suspect and dismissed policeman Agha Mansoor as proclaimed offender.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2021