LAHORE, Nov 2: The Capital City police claimed on Thursday the arrest of a member of a gang involved in kidnap for ransom cases and recovered Rs1.4 million besides illegal weapons from him.

City police chief Khwaja Khalid Farooq told a news conference that arrested Umer Sadiq, along with his brother Saqib, cousin Awais and a friend from Bahawalpur Aslam had first kidnapped Bashir Ashraf of Defence on Oct 18 for ransom worth Rs10 million. They released him after getting Rs500,000.

The same gang abducted major Irfan Atta retired, also a resident of Defence, when he reached near his residence a few days back and freed him after getting Rs2.4 million. In both the strikes, the culprits used a patrol pump in front of Nasir Bagh for collecting the ransom.

Mr Farooq said three special teams had been constituted to trace the culprits which first traced their whereabouts by monitoring their cell phone calls and then raided a house in Taizab Ahata, Misri Shah, early Thursday.

The police arrested one of accused and recovered ransom worth Rs1.4 million, a camera, a cell phone, a wireless set besides illegal weapons from him.

The CCPO said the police teams raided 10 to 12 houses one by one and at last recovered the bag carrying ransom from a house where the culprits were living as tenants.

He apologised to the residents for the inconvenience they faced during the raids, saying the police arrested the kidnapper in the larger interest of the citizens.

Also present at the press conference were SP CIA Masood Aziz, SP (investigation) Cantonment Baber Bakht and SP Civil Lines Hussain Habib who led the Misrishah operation.