KARACHI, Feb 29: Two paramedical staffers of a South Korean NGO-funded hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital, were kidnapped on their way to the hospital in Orangi Town on Wednesday morning, police said.

Issac Simons and Indrias Javed, both Pakistani nationals, were going in a hospital van with driver Mohammad Nasir as a matter of routine when they were intercepted by a white car at Jauhar Chowk near Gulshan-i-Bihar within the remit of the Pakistan Bazaar police station.

DSP Tariq Malik of the Orangi Town said that four armed men got off the car and asked the van driver and others that who among them were Korean nationals. They replied in the negative, yet the armed men held Mr Simons and Mr Javed hostage at gunpoint and took them away, the officer said.

He quoted the van driver as saying that the kidnappers used a white Corolla whose registration number he did not remember exactly. “Nasir was able to pick only two digits ‘71’ from the registration plate,” DSP Malik told Dawn.

The victims were residents of Mehmoodabad, police said.

An FIR (27/2012) was registered at the Pakistan Bazaar police station under Sections 365 (kidnapping) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on a complaint of the hospital’s van driver Muhammad Nasir.The victims worked at the Good Samaritan Hospital, situated in the Gulshan-i-Bihar area of Orangi Town. The hospital was established around 40 years back.

A number of Korean doctors, living in the hospital compound, already have police guards for their security round the clock, DSP Malik said.

A South Korean, Mr Park, was intercepted by armed motorcyclists on a road within the remit of the Pirabad police station on Nov 28, 2011. He was returning to the hospital from Saddar in his car. Though the armed riders fired shots, he did not stop the car.

Kidnap victim recovered

Police and the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee in a joint operation early Wednesday morning recovered a kidnap victim and arrested one of the suspected kidnappers in the Keamari area.

Later on Wednesday afternoon, police arrested another suspect who had come to the Civil Hospital Karachi for treatment of injuries sustained in the operation.

A handout issued by the CPLC stated that businessman Muhammad Yousuf had been kidnapped along with his car by unknown persons on Feb 27 in the limits of the Ferozabad police station.

Subsequent to the incident, the kidnappers demanded a ransom of Rs10 million from the family. The matter was reported to the police and the CPLC. The ransom was negotiated down to Rs800,000 during talks with the kidnappers, who wanted the exchange of the victim against the cash to take place somewhere in Lyari. On the insistence of the family, however, they agreed to a location near the Docks police station in Keamari.

According to the police, the kidnappers, three of whom were on motorcycles, had brought the victim to the place in his car, but when they released him in exchange for the cash, the AVCC police who were already in position opened fire at the suspects and succeeded in nabbing one of them. However, his three accomplices, who were injured in the firing, escaped. Police seized three stolen motorcycles, a TT pistol and two cellphones from them.

However, the CPLC chief said that for the time being they would not disclose the identities of the two arrested suspects, who were being interrogated.