KARACHI, Feb 2: Two of the four persons kidnapped on late Wednesday night were freed on Thursday by their captors in Gadap. Those released were identified as Nazeer and Akbar, labourers. Those taken away by the kidnappers were Shaaban and Maula Bux, a relative of Pakistan People’s Party leader and former provincial minister Hakim Baloch.

The labourers told the police and the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee that four armed men came to the thalla (cement block-manufacturing factory) owned by Maula Bux, near the Baqai Hospital in the Gadap police limits. Shaaban, a friend of Maula Bux, had come to see him there. The armed men held all the four men at the thalla at gunpoint and ordered them to walk towards the Northern Bypass. The Sindhi-speaking labourers were let off by the kidnappers near the bypass. CPLC chief Sharfuddin Memon said that no ransom call had been received till Thursday evening. However, a case had been registered about kidnapping, he added. Police and the CPLC are trying to locate the kidnappers’ hideout.

It was the fourth case this year. In January, three cases of kidnapping for ransom were reported in which five people were kidnapped. In 2005, a total of 39 cases of kidnappings were reported. Of them, three cases are still pending in which five people are yet to be found.

The police claimed that nine gangs of kidnappers were arrested in 2005. They arrested 13 such gangs in 2004, when the number of kidnapping cases stood at 39. Sources said technical support and provision of equipment to track kidnappers through their cellphone communications was the need of the hour.