MULTAN, Sept 7: Police failed to arrest the 13 other accused involved in the kidnapping of a girl and her mother, who were recovered by police some two days back. Ghazala Shaheen (24), who passed her masters from Bahauddin Zakariya University recently, was abducted along with her mother Mumtaz Bibi when she was asleep in her house in Chak Sher Khan (Kabirwala), Khanewal district, on Aug 25.

About 14 people, including Nawaz, Nazar, Ghulam Shabbir, Wajid, Azhar, Ghazanfar Abbas, Ghulam Abbas, son of Ramzan, Zulfiqar, Khadim, Ghulam Abbas and three unidentified persons, in police uniform had come to the house of Muhammad Hussain on motorcycles. After barging into the house, intruders started beating Muhammad Hussain and his sons Aftab and Ejaz. Later, they took away his wife and his daughter on pistol point and kept them in an unknown place.

Muhammad Hussain said the police had not registered a case against the accused saying that his wife and daughter had gone of their own accord.

He said that he and his family members sought help from neighbours, but nobody dare to come forward in the presence of men in `police uniform’.

On Sept 5, Kabirwala DSP Malik Daud Hasnain Abbasi in a press conference said that the police had arrested Nazar Marali, the mastermind of the kidnappers, and recovered the girl and her mother. The DSP said that the arrested accused was shifting the abductees to Lahore when police conducted a successful raid on a tip-off.

While Ghazala claimed that the police had conducted three unsuccessful raids in their bid to get our release. Just 20 to 25 minutes before every police raid, kidnappers would receive a phone call and they would shift us to another place immediately.

My uncle and his friends received us near Garah Morr while being shifted us to Lahore by Nazar Marali. In the meanwhile, Garh Maharaja police reached there and informed the Kabirwala police about our presence, she claimed.

Criticising the police attitude, she said law enforcers were not allowing her to meet her father in police station. They threatened to hand over both of us to the accused if we did not cooperate with the police, she said. What more stored for us after this statement, she said she was not sure.

“My mother is very depressed after this incident. All other culprits, still at large, are terrorising us. We demand immediate arrest of all the accused,” she said.

Meanwhile, Kabirwala DSP Malik Daud Hasnain Abbasi said the police were trying their best to arrest the remaining accused.

Ghazala was kidnapped as punishment for her uncle Wahid Bakhsh had allegedly run away with Kulsoom Mai, wife of Muhammad Nawaz, some two years back.

Balagh Sher, brother of Kulsoom Mai, had filed a murder case against his brother-in-law Muhammad Nawaz for killing his sister.

While the DSP claims that Kulsoom Mai is alive and the police will recover her soon.