SUKKUR, March 5: Two people, including a journalist, were kidnapped by five armed men in Old Sukkur on Thursday night. The armed men kidnapped six persons when they were playing badminton in Waspur locality of the city.

The area people chased after the kidnappers, compelling them to free four boys after an exchange of fire. The bandits, however, took away the two towards the Shah Belo forest. They were identified as Shahbaz Pathan and Naveed Mangi.

Shahbaz is the bureau chief of daily Halchal and brother of Lala Asad Pathan, general secretary of Sukkur Press Club. An emergency meeting of journalists was held in the Sukkur Press Club on Friday in which they unanimously adopted a resolution, demanding an early recovery of the hostages.

The resolution warned that if the kidnapped victims were not released the journalists would launch a protest movement against the police. A delegation of journalists also met with the senior police officials and lodged their resentment over the incident.

It might be mentioned that Lala Asad Pathan had recorded a documentary about the activities of bandits in the Shah Belo forest, considered to be a safe heaven for bandits. The documentary went on air last week on Dubai-based satellite TV channel.

Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists president Ahfazur Rehman through a fax message on Friday expressed his concern over the incident. He said Sindh's journalists had been subjected to killing, torture, harassment and kidnapping. He recalled that two journalists were murdered whose killers had not been arrested yet.

Mr Rehman said it seemed outlaws were ruling Sindh. He demanded that high-ups should take action against such activities and recover the kidnapped journalist, otherwise, the PFUJ would launch a movement across the country.