QUETTA, July 16: Balochistan Police arrested three members of an international kidnappers’ gang on Tuesday and recovered an Iranian from their custody in Kanak, Mastung District, some 100km southwest from here.

The man recovered, identified as Mohammad Murad, was kidnapped for ransom in February last from Khawas, a village in the Iranian Balochistan, when he was returning home from a nearby mosque after saying Asar prayers.

Balochistan Police Inspector-General Dr Shoaib Saddle told a press conference here on Tuesday. Murad was also present on the occasion.

The three arrested culprits were identified as Abdul Aziz, Panja Khan and Mohammad Bukhsh. The other nine members of the gang, who were still at large, included four Iranians and five Pakistanis, he said.

The Federal Interior Ministry and the Iranian Consulate in Quetta had also been informed about the recovery of Murad, he said.

“We found Murad in a hut in the hilly area of Kanak where he was kept tied with an iron chain,” Dr Saddle told reporters, adding that the abductors had demanded Rs6 million for his release.

He said the four kidnappers— three Iranians and one Pakistani — had taken Murad to the Punjgur area of Makran Division and kept him at a deserted place, heavily guarded by the gang. Ring leader of the gang, Abdul Ghafoor, used to visit the place once or twice a week. Later, he was shifted to Kanak.

“Two bothers of the kidnappers contacted the relatives of Murad and began negotiating for the ransom money,” he said.

In the meanwhile, on a tip off, the police and levies raided the place and recovered Mohammad Murad. Arms and ammunition were also recovered from the accused.

Dr Saddle said the gang was believed to have been involved in a number of kidnappings that had occurred on both side of the Pakistan-Iran border over the past several years.

In reply to a question, he said the gang members had also accepted that they had kidnapped a man from Quetta two years back and released him after receiving ransom.

He said that all the people kidnapped from Quetta were released after paying ransom. Murad was the first who was recovered without paying a single penny, he added.

HASHISH SEIZED: The Pishin Scouts, a wing of Frontier Corps, seized one metric ton of hashish from a Quetta-bound truck coming from the border town Chaman, late on Monday night.