|
|
|
|
 |
 |
   |
A system
held captive kidnappings Saleem who? investigation Missing is the
writ of law Stranger than
fiction
Editorial This is not the first report on kidnappings, it is not the last. Yet between voices raised at various forums for stricter protective measures, for the need for adopting quick recovery methods, children and grownups alike continue to be whisked away to territories law finds difficult to tread. With each such story, the fear gets stronger and the law enforcers appear more helpless than before. Money buys insecurity is an old saying applied to crime that involves financial gains. In this land of concessions, the kidnappers can lower their demand on the advice of an assessor who reviews the financial position of a kidnapped boy's family in broad daylight, in the presence of law enforcers, et al. And the biggest humanitarian accolades come the way of a police official who has the heart to help a father raise ransom money to secure his son's release. Likewise, as fate would have it, a youngster who manages to escape the dreaded kharkar camp on his own, finds himself stuck at the door to rehabilitation and reunion, serving tea to staffers at a police station in Lahore. The road that returns from the concentration camp can be as devoid of clues as the road that leads to the camp. The media emerges as a saviour as it forces the authorities to act with real life stories as they unfold. Yet even the channels and newspapers may run into a wall erected by kidnappers who wield considerable influence of their own away from the ambit of the law. These kidnappings can sometimes have their own colour that can turn them into more than a simple crime. They can have an ethnic or political hue to them, or they may be the outcome of a family enmity. The most painful fact as confirmed by police officials in this report is that more often than not, the act is carried out with support of a near and dear one, invariably a close relative. Operating in the midst of all these ruffians, the police inevitably come under the hammer for failing to act quickly enough and for being unable to pursue a case to its logical end. However, there is a limit to how far the police can go in search of a missing person in this wild West of our own making. The restrictions imposed on the department do certainly hamper progress even when there is a will to probe to the hilt. In the end it is a question of having a uniform law for all parts that constitute this country, a licence that exempts no one. The anomaly is as visible here as it is in other contentious areas like budgetary allocations etc. The sad part is that we have never found time and the will to look at the existing unevenness against through the eyes of a boy who is taken forcibly to the 'no go' areas. With 1,265 cases of kidnappings in just eight months, it is certainly an issue deserving of some attention.
Kidnappers of children are
having a free reign from Karachi to Lahore to Rawalpindi and FATA is where
these gangs seem to be concentrated. The police know that, but can do nothing
to intercept them. By Ahsan Zia Around 1,265 cases of missing children across the country during the last eight months are a sign of the dangerous times we are all living in. Let the obvious be stated one more time: The situation calls for a prompt and a well thought-out strategy to set things right. Kidnapping for ransom of children -- the most vulnerable among the endangered -- contributes heavily to the missing chart. Domestic violence, family enmity, financial problems, failure in school and cruel or non-friendly behaviour of parents are some of the other big factors that can lead to a child's disappearance. In southern Punjab and interior Sindh a number of organised gangs of kidnappers are operating freely, according to police sources. They are powerful enough to hold a child until they are paid the ransom. In many cases these kidnapped children have been shifted to various areas of FATA, especially the areas around Miram Shah and Wana, through various checkposts on the Motorway and GT Road. According to figures collected from police sources and NGOs, around 1,265 cases of missing children, including boys and girls have been reported in the country during the last eight months. Of these, as many as 477 cases of kidnapping for ransom were reported in Punjab, 367 in Sindh, 118 in the NWFP and the rest in Balochistan. In many a case either the relatives of the missing or kidnapped children did not contact the police and opted to secure the release of these children after paying the ransom or the police did not register an FIR. The figures further indicate that of these 1,265 missing children 935 happened to be boys while 330 were girls. Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Peshawar have all become safe preying areas for kidnappers. The data shows that in many cases, servants or neighbours of the victims were involved in their abduction. In these cases, the kidnappers threatened the victims' families of dire consequences in case they reported the incident to the police. The families felt it a safe to pay the ransom rather than inform the police. The highest number of kidnapping for ransom incidents -- well in excess of 100 -- have taken place in Karachi followed by 98 cases in Lahore, 79 in Peshawar, 25 in Rawalpindi, 37 in Quetta , 21 in Multan, 19 in Hyderabad and 22 in Larkana, while 13 such cases were reported from Islamabad. Islamabad and Rawalpindi have been in the news in recent months for violent and tragic ends to kidnapping dramas. In March this year, the Rawalpindi police found the body of 10-year-old Waleed Ahmed, whom the kidnappers had killed in Muslim Town area of the city. A man named Zeeshan Ahmed had allegedly kidnapped the boy, killed him with the help of his accomplices and buried the body in a jungle in the limits of Chountra Police Station. The kidnappers killed Waleed's uncle Tanveer Qureshi on March 24 when he came with the ransom money to secure the boy's release. The accused made off with the money but was later arrested. The police in Rawalpindi and Islamabad have so far tracked down kidnappers of three people, while the rest had to pay ransom for their release. In two instances the kidnappers killed the hostages but still managed to get the ransom money from their families. Sources say 38 incidents of kidnapping took place in the twin cities over the past eight months, but only 13 people turned up in police stations to file cases. How fearless the criminals in Islamabad have become can be gauged from the incident in which they kidnapped a niece of Rao Muhammad Iqbal, the assistant inspector general of police's special branch, from Sector F-10 and the family was unable to recover the girl -- until they paid Rs 5 million in ransom. Lahore too is a favourite hunting ground for kidnappers of children, and the tendency is to pay the ransom money rather than rely on the police to recover a kidnapped child. Ten-year-old Amir of Gujjarpura is among those whose relatives got his release secured by paying the ransom money in recent months. DPO Rawalpindi DIG Saud Aziz says Rawalpindi police have in a special operation recently recovered as many as 14 children and arrested the accused involved in these cases. He says organised gangs are involved in child abductions and they have been shifting the captives to tribal areas. He suggests stronger checks along the Motorway and GT Road by the various law enforcement agencies can put an end to this tendency effectively. Talking to TNS, Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Peshawar Haji Habib-ur-Rehman admits kidnapping of children is a major problem for the crime-fighters these days even in Peshawar. However, he says it is a false impression that Peshawar police are not helping police of other areas in their operation to recover the missing or kidnapped children from Peshawar and the tribal areas. Haji Habib says it is true that most of the kidnapped victims are shifted to the tribal areas. On failure to pay the ransom, the victim is shifted to a kharkar camp and is never returned to his parents. The criminals compel the children to crush stones and do other labour for the rest of their lives in these camps. He, however, has not heard of even a single case in which the camp masters have deprived an abducted child of their organs such as kidneys. Peshawar police, according to Haji Habib, have recently arrested a number of criminals and recovered the a number of child hostages from their custody. Moreover, some criminals were also killed in encounters during the course of police operation to recover the kidnapped children. Police officials posted elsewhere echo similar claims. SP CIA Lahore Masood Aziz says as many as 18 cases of kidnapping for ransom were reported to the police in the city during the last six months. "By the grace of God, police have been successful in solving all these cases. Five of these cases turned out to be false during the course of investigation while chalans have been sent to the courts in the remaining 13 cases," he says. Saleem who? He knows nothing about his parents and his home. He has been twice lucky though -- he escaped kharkar camp and found work with policemen Who am I? Who gave me my name? Where do I belong? Am I wanted? Who are my parents? Will I ever be able to see them again? Many questions haunt the mind of Muhammad Saleem, a free youth who has been forced to call a police station in Lahore his home. Saleem, who appears to be in his late teens, must have been very young at the time of his abduction for he repeatedly says he spent close to a decade at the concentration camp. The agony he has gone through since then and his inability to find his parents has turned his life into a nightmare. Through sheer luck he escaped from the kharkar camp about four years ago. He arrived in Lahore and found sustenance courtesy the staff at the Misri Shah Police Station. He keeps his body and soul together through what he receives daily from the policemen in return of serving them tea and buffing their shoes. He turns pale the moment he strains to recall what torments he had undergone as a young child. Saleem doesn't know as to where precisely lay the kharkar camp, yet he is pretty certain that it was located somewhere in the Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan. "I don't exactly know when and where I was abducted from, where I was born and in which family," says Saleem. "I can only recall that I was kept in a camp in the hills for about ten years along with scores of other boys and girls of various ages." The boys and girls were kept in separate caves and were never allowed to meet each other. "Frequently, I heard that the girls were taken away by the armed captors from the caves and molested. I also heard that the captors had taken out kidneys of many children. "I was forced to spend ten years of my life working in a quarry during the day and sleeping in the cave at night. Most of the time, we were kept in fetters. Armed with automatic weapons, four to five men would keep a constant vigil on us; especially when we were taken to the work. Those who would resist were given a severe thrashing." Even after hours of rack-rent work the children were never given a square meal. Those who dared to make an attempt to escape were few and exposed themselves to the abductors' wrath." Nonetheless, all these odds could not chain Slaeem's instinct to escape. He was waiting for an opportunity, and the moment finally came, some four years ago. "That day, only three armed guards accompanied the children from the workplace to the caves. After chaining the captives, two of the guards left the place leaving only one behind on duty. That one guard appeared to be drunk." Saleem pounced on the chance. He requested the guard to let him out for a call of nature. The guard unchained Saleem's legs, but the boy was still handcuffed. With those tied hands, Saleem managed to somehow grab a heavy stone outside the cave and hit the guard on his head with it. "The guard lay unconscious on the ground. I hurriedly frisked him and found just two keys on him. With the help of these two keys, I managed to remove the handcuffs on myself and another boy. I have forgotten the boy's name. He said he belonged to Karachi." The two boys ran as fast as they could up and down the mountainous tracks and paths. "It took us four maybe five hours to reach an outpost of a law enforcement agency. We related to the officials there the whole story of our escape -- but the law enforcers were unmoved by the hair-raising detail. They, nonetheless, allowed us to continue our journey. We eventually got to a city and on to the roof of a Lahore-bound bus hiding ourselves under a cloth sheet... in vain. The conductor of the bus got hold of us, but when he came to know about what had happened to us, he helped my fellow escapee get on a bus bound for Karachi and took me to Lahore with him." Saleem got down at Badami Bagh Bus Stand and luckily ran into Ghulam Ahmed Raza Qadri of Akram Road, Pak Nagar, Lahore. Qadri fed him and arranged for him stay temporarily on the premises of the Misri Shah Police Station. That temporary arrangement is now a full four years old and looks likely ato continue for many more. With no clues, it seems this is destiny for Saleem. -- Ahsan Zia investigation Barbed wires on way to the camp Recovery operations are no easy matters in asystem replete
with bottlenecks. Irfan Ahmed The failure of law enforcing agencies in checking the ever-increasing number of child abductions is no secret. But these authorities appear even more helpless when it comes to the recovery of abducted children from remote parts, even when the whereabouts of the captors and the captives are known. They cannot simply operate in areas which fall outside their jurisdictions. The police forces of different provinces or districts can be at loggerheads with each other on how to carry out the recovery operation. Mostly the abducted child is taken as far away as possible from where he or she has been picked by the kidnappers. Tribal areas along the border of Balochistan and the NWFP and 'no go' areas in interior Sindh are the safest sanctuaries for kidnappers where they can stay without fear for as long as they want. From these places, they call the relatives of the abducted children and demand ransom. It is a pity that while the police can trace these numbers and with the help of this evidence locate the criminals, this is as far as the law can stretch itself. If these cases are difficult to solve because of jurisdictional reasons, the ones where abductors lift children for purposes other than ransom would appear impossible to unravel. But a case has to be first registered for an investigation to begin. Muhammad Ijaz, a Faisalabad-based lawyer tells The News on Sunday the police are extremely reluctant to register a First Information Report (FIR). "What they do most of the time is to file an informal report stating that a child has 'presumably' been lost," he says. "It is not beyond the police to threaten to implicate the kidnapped child's relative in the case -- in an effort to divert the pressure being exerted on them to recover the missing child." A sub-inspector in the Punjab Police tells TNS on condition of anonymity that the reluctance shown by police in registering abduction cases is justified to some extent. "Many a time, people seeking custody of a child report the child as having been kidnapped. But we should not start doubting everyone who approaches the police station with a complaint of child abduction. The police must judge from the facts of the case and the statements of the complainants," he says. "As to why the close relatives are often suspected to be behind the crime, this is not without reason. Relatives have been found to be involved in a majority of cases of kidnapping for ransom solved over a period of time." The sub-inspector finds the system too complicated -- making it incumbent on an investigator to seek repeated approvals from senior officials, like permission for operating in areas falling outside their stated jurisdiction. He cites the example of a recent case in which the Lahore district police had to get written permissions from the IG Punjab, Home Secretary Punjab and even the SSP Lahore to go ahead with the recovery plan. "A proforma was signed by these officers asking their counterparts in the NWFP to cooperate with them and allow them to carry out a search operation there," he says. Once such permission is obtained, the police may have to involve paramilitary forces, secret agencies as well as local influentials for a safe release of the abducted children. A recent case shows the Federal Investigation Agency can operate with much more ease. Early this month, FIA unearthed a gang involved in kidnapping children from quake-affected areas. The authority arrested four accused from Sheikhupura on the information provided by two girls who had managed to escape from a detention cell. The girls are stated to be daughters of a retired army officer Khalid Iqbal who died along with his wife in Balakot when their house collapsed during the earthquake. The FIA could react immediately for the reason that it had its writ all over the country. Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Peshawar Haji Habib-ur-Rehman tells TNS the police have to tread very carefully in cases of kidnappings as the life of the captive is at stake. He says the police seek the help of secret agencies as well as the elders of the area in their recovery operations. "The moment we get permission from these agencies, we move into the tribal areas and recover the kidnapped children with the help of the tribal chieftains. Sometimes, we have to use Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) in these operations," he adds. Habib-ur-Rehman says that Bajaur Agency, Darra Adamkhel , Swabi, Miram Shah and Wana are some of the safe havens for kidnappers. "Even in Peshawar, Ring Road and Hayatabad are virtual boundaries that divide police administered areas from the 'no go' areas where police cannot operate on their own. The writ of the law does not extend to the other side of these roads," he says. District Police Officer (DPO) Rawalpindi Saud Aziz is dissatisfied over the existing working arrangement between the police forces of different provinces. He tells TNS that "the NWFP police hardly lends a helping hand to the Punjab police when it comes to recovery of abducted children taken to the NWFP and tribal areas. Mostly, a cold shoulder is what we get from them. This attitude is undoubtedly a major bottleneck in safe and smooth recovery of abducted children." Missing is the writ of law Balochistan has in recent times emerged as a preferred
hunting ground for kidnappers with child abductions making things scarier By Muhammad Ejaz Khan The kidnapping of children has been on the rise in Quetta and the whole of Balochistan in recent years, adding yet another sinister dimension to a frightening trend the law enforcers in the province have failed to arrest. What is worse, the police are routinely accused of refusing to register cases of kidnappings. In a majority of kidnapping instances in Balochistan in the 1990s and early 2000s, rich businessmen or industrialists, often from the minority communities, were targeted. Three businessmen who were kidnapped and freed after paying billions of rupees in ransom included a Hindu trader, Baharomal Bhatia, a Bohra trader, Sadiq Ali, and a Bahai, Hidayatullah Bundagi. They remained in the custody of kidnappers for over a year. Bundagi was tortured and the lobe of one of his ears was severed and mailed to his family in Quetta by his captors. The police have failed to make any headway in recovering Abadan Fridon, a former minister of Balochistan in Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti's cabinet in the 1980s, who was kidnapped by unknown armed men on February 17, 2002. The kidnappers demanded Rs 1 billion for setting him free. Abadan's wife Nilofur has been running from pillar to post to win his freedom. She tells TNS she has not only approached a prime minster of the country, senior officers in the Pakistani, Iranian and American police but also taken her plea to the tribal heads in Balochistan. To no avail. A machinery that has had no success in getting to the kidnappers of a former minister hardly inspires confidence among commoners who have been horrified by the freely preying ransom-seekers in their midst. Quite often since 2002, the victims are children. In May last more than a dozen cases of kidnapping of children were reported in different police stations of Quetta alone. There is no reliable data on kidnapping in Balochistan, where traditionally, the police's writ has been restricted to only 5 per cent of the total area. The police operated in what was called 'A' area while Levies force, a sort of tribal police, operated in 95 per cent of the province known as 'B' area. In the area where the police are permitted to probe and perform, they tend to add to the mystery rather than solving one. Seven-year-old Shagufta Paracha's case in March 2006 is an example. She was kidnapped on March 29, savagely raped and then mercilessly strangulated to death. A body was found and identified as being Shagufta's -- but just then a senior police official gave it a new twist by claiming in a talk with this correspondent that it was not her. The police then brazenly claimed they would recover the kidnapped girl. Later on they arrested the alleged culprit, Ghulam Murtaza his name, and the man soon confessed to having raped and murdered Shagufta. The Supreme Court of Pakistan, took suo motu notice of media reports on the kidnapping of children in Quetta. On September 4 it issued notices to the advocate general and IG police Balochistan. The SC bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar directed the IG to submit a report on the kidnapping of 42 children. The apex court was informed by Assistant Advocate General Malik Sultan Mehmood and M. Bilal advocate on behalf of the government that there had been 18 and not 42 cases of abduction of children over the last three months . However, the Chief Justice remarked the situation in Balochistan had deteriorated and that the police had not been performing their duties. The Quetta police now claim that 49 kidnapped and missing children have been recovered during the last nine months -- January-September 2006 -- and a gang involved in kidnapping for ransom cases has also been busted. They were traced to various parts of the country , brought back to Quetta and handed over to their parents. Since January last, 52 children, including Afghan and Iranian, had been reported missing or kidnapped in Quetta, said DIG (Investigation) Amjad Javed Salimi while talking to TNS. Police believe gangs of Afghan kidnappers are more active then the local ones. A general complaint in the province is that the police here are reluctant to lodge a case against the kidnappers, as was the case with Basant Kumar, a Hindu trader kidnapped in Naushki district on January 16 this year. Kumar says he was released on payment of ransom money. The Senate was told earlier this year that almost 1,500 people had been kidnapped for ransom in various parts of the country since 1998. Sindh topped the list, followed by Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan. The record placed before the Upper House showed that since 1998, 482 people were kidnapped for ransom in Punjab, 763 in Sindh, 209 in NWFP and 38 in Balochistan. The Anujman-e-Tajiran Balochistan's head Haji Ashiq Achakzai tells TNS the police had failed miserably not only in preventing the kidnapping incidents, they were actually patronising the criminals in the province. Balochistan government spokesman Raziq Bugti responds by saying that efforts are being made to trace all those who have been kidnapped in the province. That the Levies have not fared any better in the 'B' areas under their control can be gauged from the fact that they have failed to unravel the case in which a naib tehsildar in Sui tehsil of Dera Bugti was kidnapped and murdered. Shehzad Khan Bugti was taken hostage in June last at Uch Gas filed. The government has started merging 'B' area into 'A' areas under the police reform and so far 14 out of the 28 districts have been merged into the police area. Let us see how the government and police department will cope with the situation in the days to come so as to reduce the kidnapping incident. Stranger than fictionHow a father got back his son from the clutches of the kidnappers, with the help of law and money both Ghulam Mustafa went through a traumatic experience when his 9-year-old son, Amir Mustafa, went missing on the night of March 6, while playing outside their house. A father of four, Mustafa looked for Amir, the younger of his two sons, in the immediate vicinity of his home. Soon a neighbour told Mustafa that his son was last seen with one Amanullah who lived close by. Mustafa went to Amanullah's house and enquired about his son. Amanullah, however, feigned ignorance. Mustafa, a rickshaw driver, resident of China Scheme 2, Lahore, lodged a report with Gujjarpura police about his missing son after searching unsuccessfully for several days. The very next day, he received a phone call from a kidnapper who demanded a ransom of Rs 10 million for the child's release. The kidnapper told him that he had taken the child to Miram Shah. He also threatened that he would take out Amir's kidney and sell it if the ransom was not paid. On Mustafa's insistence, the police got hold of Amanullah who confessed to the crime, and divulged in the course of investigation that having kidnapped Amir he had handed him over to one of his friends, Sher Khan, a resident of Miram Shah. Amanullah tipped the police about the kidnapper's hideout, from where the police found children's clothings and toys. The police also arrested two brothers of Sher Khan, but later released them after allegedly receiving a bribe. "Instead of recovering the child, the SHO advised me to arrange the ransom money for Amir's safe release," says Ghulam Mustafa. "My sole duty was to register a case, and now it is the responsibility of the investigators to find the child and arrest the criminals," the SHO is quoted as saying by Mustafa. "When SHO asked me to arrange for Rs 10 million ransom for my son's release it sounded like a cruel joke to me," he says. He says he was left with no other option but to approach the police high-ups. "No one was ready to listen to us. But at this juncture, the media came to my rescue and took up the issue." Later on, he says, a meeting of police officers was held with SSP Investigation Lahore, Chaudhry Shafqaat Ahmed in the chair. DSP Umar Virk was directed to investigate the case and ensure the child's safe release. Moreover, it was also decided that the police in Lahore would seek the help of the NWFP Police and sensitive agencies in this regard. "In the meantime, the abductor kept changing the deadlines and ransom amount. I pleaded with him that I was a poor man and in no position to pay such a huge amount. The accused sent a mediator, Ghafoor, to my home to assess my financial position. The man also met the policemen who were investigating the case. At last the accused agreed to take Rs 2.5 lakh in ransom money. DSP Umar Virk advised me to pay the ransom money to ensure a safe release of the boy. He also assured me that he himself would arrange for the ransom amount". The captor compelled us to pay the ransom money in Miram Shah. "So I, along with social worker Ghulam Ahmed Raza and a policeman went to Miram Shah and got my son released after payment of the ransom money," concludes Mustafa. -- Ahsan Zia
|
|
