KARACHI, Oct 5: An anti-terrorism court put off on Thursday the hearing of a kidnapping for ransom case after recording the deposition of two prosecution witnesses.

Judge Feroze Mehmood Bhatti of the ATC-2 fixed Oct 11 for the next hearing after the statements of Shabbir Raza Hussain and Mumtaz Ahmed.

The case pertained to the kidnapping of a senior bureaucrat’s son, who was kidnapped in Karachi on Sept 19, 2005, and later recovered in Peshawar.

Hanif Ullah, his son Farhan Ullah, Sikander Shah and Azizur Rehman are being tried for the kidnapping of Hamid Umer Sameen, a young banker and son of Abdul Ghani Sameen.

According to prosecution, the victim was on his way in Clifton when occupants of a car, bearing fake registration number of the Sindh government, intercepted his car. Accused Hanif Ullah was clad in the uniform of army major and accused Aziz was in the uniform of private security guard.

The accused kidnapped the victim with his car on the pretext of interrogation. They replaced the fake registration number plate of their car with that of victim’s car and left Karachi by road.

On their way, the accused met an accident near Dera Ghazi Khan and the left arms of the victim and accused Hanif were also broken. Later, the accused took the victim to Peshawar and kept him with their accomplices.

On Sept 21, accused Farhan Ullah went to an ATM machine in Mardan and withdrew Rs20,500 from there by using the ATM card of the victim, who was then employed with the United Bank. The transaction alerted the bank as their staffer was already reported to have been missing. They put the ATM machine under observation of the police.

The police retrieved the digital photographs of those who had visited the ATM facility at the bank and tracked down Shabbir Hasan Raza, who was running an optical shop near the bank.

Shabbir Hasan Raza, who appeared as a prosecution witness, stated before the court that Farhanullha was his college fellow. He said Farhan came to him on Sept 21 and told him that his father had met an accident and he wanted to withdraw some cash from the ATM card of his father. He said he sought his help in cash withdrawal saying he did not know how to use and ATM card.

The prosecution witness said he went to the ATM machine and helped Farhan withdraw money from the machine. He also recognised his and Farhan’s digital photographs taken at the ATM facility by the computer.

Mumtaz Ahmed, bank manager of UBL Cant Branch, Mardan, also appeared as a prosecution witness. He submitted that on Sept 22 the police came to him and asked for the computerised photographs of those who had visited the ATM facility on Sept 21. He said he had given them the printouts.

Both the prosecution witnesses were also cross-examined by defence counsel Raza Hashmi and Jeved Chhatari.

Special public prosecutor Naimat Ali Randhawa has so far examined 11 prosecution witnesses.