LAHORE, Feb 25: The Crimes Investigation Agency (CIA) of the capital city police claimed on Friday to have solved four kidnap for ransom cases and arrested a number of suspects, including a young man, who had underwent gender reassignment surgery during her BSc studies at a girls college, and a police inspector. Similarly, the CIA also arrested 28 members of three gangs of robbers wanted in 93 cases. Lahore Investigations SSP Abdul Razaq Cheema, flanked by CIA SP Umer Virk, told reporters here on Friday that the CIA’s performance in solving kidnap for ransom and other heinous crimes was outstanding.

He said eight-year-old Asif Ali, son of Waris Ali, a property dealer of Yaseen Colony, was kidnapped from his school on Jan 10, 2011 for Rs3 million ransom.

The investigators learnt that the kidnappers had thrown a SIM at Asif’s residence, telling his family members to contact them (kidnappers) through that SIM only.

By scanning the SIM data, the CIA officials traced one of the suspects identified as Yasir Abbas, who disclosed to the interrogators that he and his accomplice Ali Shahzad, a rickshaw driver, had strangled the boy to conceal their crime.

A relative of Waris Ali, Abbas was initially a girl named Tahira and had passed her intermediate examination from a girls’ college. Later, Tahira took admission in BSc but during studies, she was diagnosed with gender identity disorder and after sex reassignment surgery, she became a boy named Yasir and was expelled from the girls college. The jobless Abbas hatched up a plan to make some money by kidnapping his relative’s son with the connivance of his friend Shahzad.

In another such case, the SSP said, Muhammad Yasin, a businessman, was kidnapped when he came to meet his relatives in Gulzeb Colony in Samanabad on Feb 4.

The kidnappers also took along with them Yasin’s drivers Shafqat Hussain and Ikramul Haq and his Land Cruiser and demanded Rs10 million ransom but released him only after receiving Rs5 million.

The CIA police traced the culprits identified as Misshi Noor, a woman with whom the trader had an affair, and her accomplices including Khalid Aslam, a police inspector, and Zafar Iqbal and Mujahid Abbas and arrested them.

Ms Noor had made the plan to extract some money from her businessman friend by kidnapping him for ransom. The police seized the Land Cruiser as well as the money collected by the suspects.

SSP Cheema said that two suspects identified as Nazir and Bilal kidnapped five-year-old Irslan, son of Muhammad Aslam, a property dealer of Kamahan village, for Rs2.5 million ransom. They took the boy to Kasur and released him only after receiving Rs50,000. The suspects turned out to be Aslam’s neighbours.

The SSP said that Malik Rashid, of Rehmanpura, Muslim Town, informed the police that some people had kidnapped his uncle Malik Ibrahim in Greece for Rs5 million ransom.

The kidnappers contacted Ibrahim’s family through their accomplice in Lahore to pay the money for his release.

The CIA traced the suspect identified as Ashraf Jahangir and arrested him from Wahdat Colony when he came to collect ransom money at the designated place. His accomplices in Greece, who were kept unaware of his arrest, released Ibrahim when Ashraf spoke to them under police instructions and informed them that he had collected the ransom according to the plan.

The SSP said that further investigations were under way to trace the remaining suspects in Greece.

He said the CIA also arrested 28 alleged members of three gangs of robbers.

Four robbers identified as Mubashar Arif, Zahid, alias Shoka, Saqib alias Shaqi, and Babar Ali had looted the prime minister’s media secretary Muhammad Saleem Beig on Nov 17, 2010 when he was about to leave his Faisal Town residence on an official vehicle.

Similarly, they had deprived former medical adviser of Pakistani cricket team, Dr Muhammad Abdul Muqadam, of his valuables and cash in Faisal Town on Oct 17, 2010.

The CIA seized eight snatched cars, 19 motorcycles and 13 unlicenced pistols, Rs1.4 million looted cash and 17 cell phones from these suspects.