ISLAMABAD/GUJAR KHAN, Nov 28: The parents of a Kashmiri boy whose alleged kidnapping for ransom triggered a tussle between the Azad Kashmir and the Punjab police have sought President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s intervention to see that the kidnappers are arrested.
Khwaja Abdul Latif and his wife Naseem Akhtar told a press conference in Islamabad on Sunday that the Azad Kashmir police had arrested four alleged accomplices from Gujar Khan and Kallar Sayidan but the main kidnappers — Mudassir Nazar and his step- brother Ejaz Bhatti — were still at large.
Their 12-year-old son Ahsan Latif was kidnapped from Mangla where he was a class 6th student of the Army Public School, on October 17 and was reportedly released on October 28 after his father paid a ransom of Rs650,000 to the kidnappers.
The Thootaal police, Mirpur, raided the houses of the suspects and arrested four alleged accomplices of the kidnappers — Suhail Nazar, younger brother of the main accused, Mudassir, Sajjad, Khurram Waheed, Naheed Irshad. They are on judicial remand till Nov 29.
The Mirpur police also raided houses in Gujar Khan and picked four women relatives of the alleged kidnappers on Oct 27 to make the main accused surrender to the AJK police. But they were released on bail on Nov 26 after public resentment in the press and the Senate of Pakistan.
The Mirpur police, however, got signed a statement “under duress” from the women showing their arrest on Nov 17.
The parents of the boy accused a member of the Punjab Assembly from Gujar Khan Raja Tariq Kainai of Pakistan Peoples Party and some local nazims of pressuring the police to release the four accomplices of the kidnappers.
“They have also registered a case against us for helping the police in arresting the abductors”, Khwaja Latif said, who works in Dubai and had come to Pakistan after hearing about the kidnapping of his son.
When contacted by Dawn the MPA rejected the allegation baseless saying he has no sympathy for the kidnappers. “They should be punished for their crime,” MPA Kiani said, however he criticized the tactics of the AJK police for using women as “bargain chip”.
He said that he had only raised the issue of what he called the illegal arrest of the four women by the Mirpur police at the floor of the Punjab Assembly on Wednesday.
Police had also arrested an influential man, Kamran alias Kama, after they found that the two main accused had sent him SMS messages on his mobile phone telling him that he had been sent Rs50,000 in order to save them from the police, they maintained. He said his son could not go to school as they feared he might be abducted again.
Ahsan’s paternal uncle, Suhrab Ahmad, said “despite the fact that my nephew was kidnapped and we paid the ransom we are still treated as criminals and not victims”. He said his brother was planning to settle down in Dubai because in Pakistan he faced only humiliation and harassment.