PESHAWAR, June 14: Police Tuesday recovered a kidnapped industrialist of Punjab from a deserted building at Shaikhan area in the limits of Badhber police station.

Superintendent of Police Abdul Kalam Khan told a press conference here that industrialist Ihsanul Haq was kidnapped from Gujranwala on May 25 and his captors were demanding Rs3 million for his release.

Police, following some tips, raided a building off the Frontier Road in Bara area of Khyber Agency, and found the victim in chains there. But the criminals who had kidnapped him for ransom managed to escape, said the officer.

Narrating his ordeal, Mr Haq told reporters that on May 25, as he came out of a mosque in Gujranwala after offering Maghreb prayer two motorcyclists requested him to guide them to a nearby town.

“As we were talking one of them took out a pistol and told me to accompany them on the bike. Some people were waiting with a white colour car in a nearby street and looked to be members of some inter-provincial gang of kidnappers,” he said.

“They pushed me into the car and put a handkerchief on my mouth to knock me out. When I gained consciousness I saw that I was in a room,” he said. He said that the motorcyclists spoke Punjabi but his kidnappers were Pakhtuns.

The kidnappers talked to his family by telephone to present their conditions for his release. “I had Rs65,000 in my pocket at that time but they snatched the amount and cellular phone from me,” he said.

The industrialist said that his captors shifted him to another building soon after they demanded ransom. He said that they used to give him two-time meal and avoided talking to him. The SP said that efforts were being made to arrest the culprits but they seemed to have shifted to Khyber tribal region. A case against unidentified kidnappers, he said, was registered at Badhber police station.