NAROWAL: A resident of Sialkot’s Bilal Colony who had been missing since Aug 10 was discovered dead on Oct 26 in the Gehilpur neighbourhood of Kashmore, Sindh, most likely by his captors since his family could not pay them Rs10 million in ransom.

Yasir Iqbal approached the police that his septuagenarian father, Muhammad Iqbal, went missing on Aug 10, and the next day, he received a call from his father’s mobile number that he was in the custody of the kidnappers.

On Aug 12, the Hajipura police registered a first information report against unidentified kidnappers. In the following days, the kidnappers contacted the family to secure the ransom and made video calls in which they were seen brutally beating the elderly man.

The Sialkot police formed teams to trace the kidnappers, but all in vain. In video calls, Iqbal begged the family to pay the ransom. Yasir said he worked in a factory, so arranging Rs10 million was beyond his means.

He said the police asked him to convince the kidnappers to reduce the ransom, and that the police were ready to arrange Rs1.2 million to secure his father’s release.

Spokesperson for the police Khurram Shehzad said the call data showed the deceased Iqbal was trapped by a woman through phone calls, who called him to meet her in the lawless Kacha areas of Sindh. Iqbal travelled on his own to Kashmore from Sialkot by bus.

He said that the Sialkot police, with their colleagues in Jacobabad, Rahim Yar Khan, and Kashmore districts, raided various places for 10 days. Later on, the floods struck, and the Sindh police refused to raid flooded areas.

He said the police kept engaging the abductors to buy time and recover the hostage, but on Oct 26, the police found his body in Kashmore.

The police handed over the body to the family after the postmortem and other legal procedures. District Police Officer Muhammad Faisal Kamran said they would arrest the killers.

He said that, according to Yasir, the gang had held more people hostage for ransom, and in this regard, he had asked the Punjab government to arrange a large operation to arrest the accused.

The police said the kidnappers had been identified, and would soon be arrested.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2022