PESHAWAR, Sept 8: Lack of coordination between police and other government agencies has been obstructing action against hardened criminals involved in kidnapping and car theft/ snatching, according to official sources.

In most of the cases, criminals use cellphones to contact the family of kidnapped persons for ransom. But due to non-availability of special call-tracking device with the investigation police, frequency of their cellphones cannot be detected while police cannot coordinate directly with cellphone companies or the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to ascertain caller’s identity and addresses in such cases.

“Yes, we are facing difficulties in investigation due to non-availability of special devices to detect frequency of cellular phone or to know through which booster or sub-booster criminals made calls to victims,” said Senior Superintendent Investigation Police Dar Ali Khattak.

Only the ISI and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) have special call-tracking devices, official sources said, adding that police were dependent on these agencies.

“We give callers’ number to the ISI and IB and request them to let us know from which area the criminals contacted the victim family,” the SSP said.

Sometimes the two agencies act immediately but sometimes they take longer period to provide the information, he said. Last Monday, banker Asad Marwat, son of former official of excise and taxation department Abdul Hameed Marwat, was kidnapped reportedly for a Rs5 million ransom.

The family received a call from the kidnappers and provided telephone number to the police. But, interestingly, the police have not so far registered a case.

On Aug 15, one Nisar Khan was kidnapped from his farm on the GT Road and his captors had demanded Rs1.5 million ransom.

According to the sources, the family did not inform police and are now negotiating directly with the kidnappers for reduction in ransom money.

In December last year, a Suzuki Alto of Mr Mansoor Aslam and two motorbikes of journalists were stolen from Hayatabad Phase-VI and the Peshawar Press Club respectively. Their owners lodged cases against unknown thieves with the East-Cantt police station.

Both Mr Mansoor and the two journalists received calls from the thieves who demanded money for returning the car and the bikes.

This correspondent himself gave telephone numbers of the callers to the East-Cantt police but the police could not even get information about the callers from the agencies. Later Mr Mansoor expired due to cardiac arrest, a probable reason of which was theft of his car and the calls he received from the thieves.