LAHORE: The Punjab Crime Control Department (CCD) reportedly recovered a general surgeon from Kasur, some 22 hours after he was kidnapped from the Defence Housing Authority (DHA), Lahore, by the unidentified armed men.

The sources claimed that a team of the CCD from Lahore raided the hideouts of the suspected kidnappers in Phoolnagar where they had kept 62-year-old Dr Tahir Jamil reportedly for Rs200 million worth of ransom they were demanding for his release.

A police official said Dr Tahir was allegedly kidnapped late on Monday night when he was on his way home from his private clinic in Phase IV.

He said the unidentified bikers held him up at gunpoint and then took him to an undisclosed place from where he was probably driven away in a car.

Lahore Operations DIG Faisal Kamran, who visited the crime scene and then met the doctor’s family, told Dawn that Dr Tahir used to come back home on a fixed time daily.

As he got late, the DIG said, his daughter called on his mobile phone repeatedly but it was found switched off.

The family later launched a search and found the car of Dr Tahir abandoned alongside a road, the DIG said adding that the family members immediately alerted the police suspecting that he might have been kidnapped.

Mr Faisal said after some time, the family got a call from the kidnappers who were demanding a heavy amount of ransom.

Interestingly, the suspects had used the mobile phone number of Dr Tahir to contact his family for the ransom.

He said he immediately engaged the CCD and deputed a respective SP operations.

The DIG said the police managed to trace the location of the mobile phone somewhere in Phoolnagar.

The Kasur district police also deputed a team to assist the CCD, Mr Faisal said, adding that on Tuesday evening the police were updated that the suspected kidnappers had released Dr Tahir when the officials reached close to the location.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2025