KARACHI: Three eyewitnesses on Saturday rightly picked out the prime suspect as the kidnapper of two young girls from Defence Housing Authority in 2019 during an identification parade conducted by a judicial magistrate on Saturday.

Suspect Zohaib Ali Qureshi, said to be the alleged mastermind of the high-profile kidnappings of Bisma Saleem and Dua Mangi, managed to escape from police custody after attending a court hearing at the City Courts on Jan 27 this year. He was arrested again a couple of months ago in an injured condition after an encounter.

On Saturday, the investigating officer produced the suspect before the judicial magistrate (South) and moved an application pleading to conduct his identification parade by the witnesses.

After completing legal formalities, the magistrate held the identification parade during which the suspect along with dummies was lined up before three eyewitnesses separately.

The witnesses rightly picked out the suspect among the dummies as the man involved in kidnapping of the two girls.

Bisma, said to be a blogger and make-up artist, was abducted outside her home in DHA by armed men travelling in a car on May 12, 2019. She had returned home a week later allegedly after payment of ransom.

Later, Dua, a law student, was also kidnapped from the Bukhari Commercial area of the DHA on Nov 30, 2019 by four gunmen, who also shot at and wounded her friend, Haris Fatah Soomro, as he put up resistance. A week later, she also returned home after alleged ransom payment.

The police claimed to have arrested five suspects in connection with these high-profile kidnapping cases. One of them, Zohaib, had escaped from their custody earlier this year. However, he was rearrested and brought to Karachi.

Published in Dawn, january 1st, 2023