KARACHI, Jan 16: The four accused in a kidnapping for ransom case — three dismissed policemen and an editor of a periodical — were also allegedly involved in blackmailing people by forcibly taking nude photographs of young women.

This was revealed on Thursday by the special public prosecutor, Naimat Ali Randhawa, who placed before an anti-terrorism court as many as 107 nude photographs of young women, during his final arguments in the main case.

The prosecution pleaded to Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the ATC-3 for capital punishment to ASI Shahzad Baig, constable Jawaid Nazeer, Mujahid Hussain and Wasim Ansari, editor of Corruption Benaqab, for kidnapping four people for ransom.

The judge fixed Jan 21 for the announcement of judgment after hearing final arguments from the prosecution and the defence.

Some of the photographs showed ASI Shahzad and Wasim Ansari also stripping women. In one of the photographs, the police official was seen in uniform.

The prosecution also placed before the court photocopies of three FIRs against accused Shahzad, registered by the Baloch Colony, Buffer Zone and Gulzar-i-Hijri police for blackmailing the complainants, who alleged that the accused had taken nude photographs of their female family members.

The prosecutor argued that the gravity of the offence by police officials was more severe than by civilians considering the fact that the former were the custodian of law.

When the judge showed the accused their photographs, the two accused said the photographs were not theirs. The court, however, was of the view that those were their photographs.

The Gulzar-i-Hijri police arrested the four accused with three women during snap checking of vehicles in November last year. Fauzia, a resident of Buffer Zone, told police that the accused had kidnapped her and her two friends at her house for ransom.

The Gulzar-i-Hijri police handed over the accused and the women to the Buffer Zone police, who registered the case against the four on the complaint of Mohammed Jaffer, Fauzia’s husband.

The complainant told police that his wife was a hosiery worker. On Nov 5 her two colleagues, Shazia and Sadia, came to his house around 5:30pm. After a short while two hosiery contractors also came to his house. He said the accused, riding in the car (B-6324) of Wasim Ansari, came to his house. The intruders stripped one of the contractors and photographed him. Later, they took away the complainant, his wife, the two women and the two contractors in their car and a hired taxi.

The accused released the complainant to arrange Rs50,000 for the release of his wife, who was in their custody along with her two colleagues. The accused also released the two contractors after extorting whatever money they had with them.

Complainant Jaffer and his wife, who also appeared as prosecution witnesses, however, retracted their statements to police. The court declared them hostile witnesses at the request of the prosecutor.

The couple are stated to have gone into hiding after the court issued show- cause notices to them as they did not turn up to be cross-examined by the prosecutor.

CASE AGAINST LAHORI: Another prosecution witness, an eye- witness, recorded his statement before an anti-terrorism court in the Shaukat Mirza murder case against the chief of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and two activists.