SUKKUR/KHAIRPUR, March 28: Indicating a marked surge in dacoits’ activities in upper Sindh, four people were snatched near a Jacobabad village early on Wednesday and four others who went missing between Sukkur and Khairpur late on Tuesday are feared kidnapped.

The car they were travelling in has been found abandoned, which suggests they have been kidnapped.

Four farmers, including two teenaged brothers, were kidnapped by armed men when they were working in a field near Juma Khan Dasti village near Jacobabad.

Lakhmir, 15, his brother Deedar, 13, sons of Nek Mohammad Dasti, their cousin Shahid Ali, son of Manzoor Ali Dasti, and Mohammad Ramzan, son of Mir Hazar Dasti, were watering the field just after Fajr prayers when a gang of armed men took them away at gunpoint.

Police with the help of villagers and traditional footprint experts followed marks left by the kidnappers’ feet but the footprints faded away in Jagan area in Shikarpur district and they failed to make any progress.

Later, relatives of the hostages, including women and children, held a demonstration on the road near the village.

Manzoor Dasti, father of kidnapped Shahid Ali, told journalists that he and his family had no enmity with anyone.

DSP of Saddar (Jacobabad) Ali Bux Dakhan said that police were making efforts for the hostages’ recovery and were confident they would be traced soon.

Police have arrested five suspects, Zahoor, Mehran, Dad Mohammad, Tahir and Gulzar, all Dasti by caste, on charge of harbouring the kidnappers, and lodged an FIR against them on a complaint registered by Manzoor Ali against Zahoor Dasti (already in police custody), his son Ahsan Dasti and Barkat Ali Pechuho.

In another incident, two men and tow children went missing when they were going to Khairpur from Sukkur late on Tuesday evening. Owner a medial store Zaheer Ahmed of Mir Ali Bazaar, Khairpur, had gone to Sukkur for medical check-up of his two-year-old daughter Safia along with his nephew Irfan and a friend Mansoor Ahmed Shaikh in his car.

They went missing on way back to Khairpur. Their relatives mounted a search for them and suspected they might have been kidnapped.

They told reporters on Wednesday that their car had been found in an area in Shikarpur district, which had strengthened their fears they might have been kidnapped.

Another man, Zameer Bhutto, went missing from Pir Jo Goth and his relatives held a demonstration in the Pir Jo Goth on Wednesday.

They told journalists that Bhutto was going to his house in Bhutto locality when he was abducted by four armed men.

On March 24, Shams Memon, Haji Abbasi, Shafqat Abbasi and Pappu Larik of Khuhra were kidnapped while going to Sukkur in a rented-car. The car driver Abdul Rahim Ujjan was found dead.