KARACHI, April 8: An eight-year-old boy, kidnapped outside his school in PECHS on Tuesday morning, was secured by a team of police and the CPLC. Two of his kidnappers were arrested in Mowach Goth, but two others escaped.

During the first two months of this year, nine kidnapping for ransom cases have been reported in the city, of which four have been solved, official statistics show.

Baqar, son of Zain-ul-Abidin, a builder, left his Muslimabad home in a school van. As he was about to enter the school, the Head Start school in PECHS, four persons in a waiting Liana (ANV-039) grabbed the boy and drove away.

Eyewitnesses noted down the registration number of the car and subsequently police and the CPLC were informed about the incident. Shortly after the kidnap, the family received a call for a Rs10 million ransom for the boy’s release.

When the owner of the car, Mr Shaukat, was traced, he said he had given his car to a rental business outlet, Famous Rent a Car, in PIB Colony.

Subsequently, a team of the Anti-Violent Crime Unit (AVCU) and the Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) and area SPO, comprising Ahmed Chinoy, DSP Amir Hameed and SPO Ferozabad Qasim Ghauri, went to the car rental shop in civil dresses. Meanwhile, the man who had rented the car returned there with the car. As the suspect, identified as Mohammad Ali Soomro, was detained and interrogated, he divulged the whereabouts of the boy. It led to a raid in Mowach Goth, which resulted in the release of the boy and arrest of another suspect, identified as Waseem.

Ferozabad DSP Qasim Ghauri told Dawn that Mohammad Ali Soomro had been a driver with the boy’s family for some four months before he quit the job. Soomro pointed out the family as a possible target for kidnapping, the DSP added.

“The class two students put a brave face during his ordeal despite his tender age,” the DSP remarked.

Police said two of their accomplices, identified as Iqbal and Saleem, escaped.

Meanwhile, another kidnapping-for-ransom case occurred in the Gulistan-i-Jauhar police limits on Monday night, but was not reported to police.

Sources close to the family said that an eight-year-old boy was kidnapped at the Aladin Park on Rashid Minhas Road.

Sources close to the family said they didn’t report the matter to police and acted on the instructions of the kidnappers, who called the family immediately after kidnapping the boy, warning them not to contact police.

The family remained in touch with the kidnappers and provided the ransom amount after negotiations and at around 6am the boy’s release was secured by the family, sources told Dawn.

Sources close to the family said the family got scared by the threats of the kidnappers and acted on their directives and didn’t contact police for fear of the boy’s life. Similarly, last week four persons allegedly involved in the kidnapping for ransom of a seven-year-old boy were arrested on Friday.

Police said the suspects, one of them a cousin of the kidnapped child, had also tried to kill the boy by throwing him off the Clifton bridge, fearing that they had been identified by the boy.

The boy, Ghulam Hussain, survived the fall and a passer-by, a heroin addict, took the injured boy to a nearby apartment building presuming that he had fallen from the apartment. One of the residents took him to the JPMC, where he received medical care for three days.Upon regaining consciousness, the boy informed his family about the involvement of his cousin, said a statement issued by the CPLC.

Later, the CPLC and the AVCU raided the hideout of the suspects — identified as Shahzad, Danish, Arif and Shoaib — and arrested them.

The boy was kidnapped in the Baldia Town police limits on March 27.

During 2007, a total of 65 cases of kidnapping for ransom were reported, of which 22 were solved and 20 gangs involved were apprehended. According to the official data on kidnapping for ransom, last year witnessed a sharp rise in the crime. In 1990, 79 cases, the highest number in a year, were reported, of which 68 were solved and eight gangs busted.