LARKANA, Nov 26: Three people, including a driver and a cleaner of an oil tanker, were kidnapped from near Ratta Barrage in the Ratodero area late on Tuesday night

A tanker loaded with oil for a petrol pump in Wada Bossan town, 50 kilometres off here, was intercepted near Ratta Barrage by a group of armed men. They kidnapped Mohammed Ismael Bossan, Ali Gohar Kalhoro and Abdul Raouf Kalhoro at gunpoint.

The kidnappers abandoned the oil tanker, clothes and the mobile phones of the victims at some distance.

Police and the villagers set out for tracing the footprints of the kidnappers which were leading towards Garhi Yaseen, the sources said.

The locals said it was a targeted kidnapping because for the last 15 years oil tankers had been plying between Ratodero and Wada Bossan town.

Arif Pahore, president of oil tankers association and others arrived at the scene and joined the police to trace kidnappers. The SP investigation Larkana Nazeer Gujjar and the DSP Ratodero Jan Mohammad Mughairi were hopeful to find out a clue of the kidnappers. Ihssan Bossan was picked up in the case, the sources said.

Ashique Bossan, the owner of the petrol pump said that fragile law and order situation in the area had worried them. He said NA-207 had been the constituency of Ms Benazir Bhutto and deterioration of law and order situation here was quite disturbing.

“We are living in constant fear and lack of police deployment had further deepened it,” he said and suggested security on roads.

He said that one Sajjid Bossan, who was kidnapped from the town about one and half months ago, had reached home just three days ago and now this incident had taken place.

Just three days ago a goldsmith Soomar Khokhar was kidnapped from Ratodero town while he was on a morning walk and police was busy tracing the kidnappers when this incident occurred.

Meanwhile, Amir Bakhsh Bhutto, vice-chairman of Sindh National Front (SNF) on Wednesday arrived at the house of Soomar Khokhar and sympathised with the aggrieved family.

He said if the kidnapped victim (goldsmith) was not recovered after the expiry of five days’ deadline sought by Larkana police, the SNF would start holding protest demonstrations throughout Sindh.