ATTOCK, Oct 3: A criminal case was registered against the SHO and three other officials of Rangu Police station in kidnappers’ absconding case, it has been learnt.

Police sources said that case was registered against SHO Ibrar Qureshi, Sub Inspector (SI) Mehmood, SI Sher Muhammad and ASI Mumtaz for their alleged involvement in the absconding of three most wanted kidnappers of inter-provincial gang from the police lockup, last Friday. The officials were arrested by the police soon after registration of case.

On the other hand, no clue of the three kidnappers could be traced by the police despite passage of four days. It is being assumed that the absconding criminals, who belonged to a most notorious gang of kidnappers for ransom, might have escaped to some tribal area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to avoid their arrest again.However, the arrest of kidnappers had become a real challenge for the district police, who had already been under serious public criticism for failing to control crimes and lack of supervision at the police stations.

The villagers of Rangu Police station had  warned that they would protest strongly, if police failed to arrest the kidnappers, as they believed that the incident occurred due to alleged involvement of police against receiving heavy bribe from the gangsters.

It may be mentioned here that five police officials of the same Police station including head constable Ahmed Bukash and fourconstables  Tahir, Dilawar,  Muhammad Arif, Muhammad Ismail, were also booked and arrested in the same case.— Yaqoob Malik