KARACHI, Feb 15: An anti-terrorism court indicted on Tuesday three accused in a case pertaining to kidnapping of two children who were recovered after 14 months.

Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the ATC-3 fixed Wednesday for recording the statements of the prosecution witnesses after accused Zulfiqar Ahmed, Safar Iqbal and Sajid Iqbal denied the charges and pleaded "not guilty".

Jahanzeb, 8, and Komal, 7, were allegedly kidnapped near Carson Complex in block-II, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, on Dec 10, 2001, when they, with their mother, were going to their school on foot.

The kidnappers, who also beat the mother before taking away her children, demanded Rs2.5 million as ransom. They kept the children in Karachi for four months. Later, the children were shifted to Rawalpindi in the house of accused Zulfiqar.

The mother, however, told the kidnappers that she was not in a position to pay the ransom amount in lump sump. She agreed to pay the amount in instalments and issued a cheque for Rs250,000 in the favour of the absconding accused, Mohammad Ashraf.

The kidnapped children came into contact with their mother on the internet. The woman reported the matter to the CPLC, which found out the address of accused, Zulfiqar, after tracking down the Internet Service Provider (IPS).

A special team of the CPLC and Karachi Police raided on March 23, 2003, the house of Zufiqar with the assistance of Rawalpindi police and recovered the two children. Accused Zulfiqar was allegedly arrested red-handed and two other accused, who are real brothers, were arrested hours later on his lead.

The police initially charged the three accused with abduction under Section 365 of the Pakistan Penal Code and submitted the final charge sheet in the sessions court. Their fourth accomplice, Mohammad Ashraf, a Navy personnel, was shown absconder in the charge-sheet. The absconding accused sought a pre-arrest bail from the sessions court.

It was alleged that there was a monetary dispute between the absconding accused, Ashraf and the victims' father, Zafar Iqbal. The sessions court, however, transferred the case to the administrative judge of the ATCs at the time of indictment as it involved the offence of kidnapping for ransom. Accused Ashraf, who was on bail, absconded after the shifting of the case to the ATC.

Special public prosecutor Naimat Ali Randhawa is appearing on behalf of the state, while Mohammad Ilyas Tanoli and Raheem Khan Bangash are representing the three accused.

BLAST CASES: Judge Haq Nawaz Baloch of the ATC-3 put off the bearing of two petrol pump blast cases against two workers of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Aalmi after recording the statements of four prosecution witnesses.