British boy abducted in Jehlum

[fawwaxs]

Robbers kidnapped a five-year-old British boy after terrorising his family for several hours in their house in Jhelum on Wednesday night. They robbed the house and demanded a ransom for releasing the boy.

The mum of a five-year-old British boy snatched by a gun gang yesterday sobbed as she begged them not to harm him.

Sahil Saeed was on holiday at his gran's home in Pakistan with dad Naqqash Saeed when five armed robbers burst in.

The men, also wielding grenades, tortured the family for six hours before fleeing with cash, jewels and the schoolboy. They demanded £100,000 for his return.

Distraught mum Akila Naqqash, 31, who remained in the UK, pleaded: "He's just a little boy. He's just five. He was due to come home today. Please don't hurt him."

The lowly paid shop worker was also in tears as she revealed she and jobless Naqqash could not afford the ransom.

And the mum of three expressed bewilderment at why they had been targeted. She said: "We've no idea why. We don't have any money. There's no way we could raise that money. There's nothing we can do.

"My husband would swap places if he could. He said to them, 'Take me, I'll be your hostage'. We just want him back home."

Sahil was snatched from Jhelum in northeast Pakistan early on Thursday morning, hours before he and his father were due to head home to Oldham.

Mr Saeed, 28, told how the robbers fled with Sahil after an overnight ordeal. He said: "I told them I don't have that much money. After that they took my son."

His wife learnt the grim news when sister Amrana Iftikhar called at her home. Akila said: "I broke down and thought it couldn't be true, so I phoned my husband. I cried and cried. We haven't heard from the kidnappers. All we can do is wait."

Pakistan is one of the worst countries for kidnappings, said to be number in the mid to high hundreds every year. Expert Farzana Shaikh blamed a "weak police force and breakdown of law and order in Punjab".

Last night the Foreign Office said one man had been arrested. A spokeswoman said: "Our Consular staff are in close touch with the chief investigating officer."

Pakistan's High Commissioner in London, Wajid Shamsul, insisted: "The boy should be returned some time soon. I'm optimistic."

 

[fawwaxs]

Hopes rise for boy kidnapped in Pakistan as police question suspects



Pakistani police have questioned suspects in connection with the kidnapping of a British boy and were optimistic of a breakthrough soon, an investigator said.

The robbers also took some household possessions and demanded a £100,000 ransom to return the child.

The case is among a soaring number of kidnappings for ransom in Pakistan, where Taliban-led militancy and a struggling economy have fueled crime. Most victims are Pakistani nationals.

Police investigator Raja Tahir Bashir said that officers were working on some leads.

"God willing, we will recover the boy very soon," he said, declining to give further details. "We are doing whatever is possible."

Bashir said multiple suspects were being questioned.

They are thought to include a man described as a "prime suspect" in the kidnapping, the driver of a taxi that came to pick up the family.

British officials have been in touch with the boy's parents, who had been scheduled to return from their holiday to Britain on Thursday.

The boy's father, Raja Naqqash Saeed, said he was tortured by men brandishing guns and a hand-grenade.

Mr Saeed said: "They took me into the separate room and they tortured me. They said 'we will take your son and you will have to pay £100,000'."

Criminal gangs are suspected in many kidnappings for ransom in Pakistan, but the Taliban and other militant groups are thought to earn a slice of the money. The sums demanded can run into the millions of dollars, though the captors often settle for less.

The British boy's mother made an emotional televised appeal for his safe return.

"I just want my son back safe," Akila Naqqash told Sky News from her home in Oldham, Greater Manchester.

"We have got no idea why we were targeted - we don't have any money. He’s such a sweet little boy. He’s a bubbly boy and gets on with his teacher and the other children. All I can do is pray for him. Just please bring him back, what has he done?”

Hopes rise for boy kidnapped in Pakistan as police question suspects - Telegraph

 

[mjnaushad]

Sad news indeed. But now as the news reached high level the police will put all its efforts to rescue the child. the best brains of police are working on this case. I hope the kid will be rescued safe and sound.

 

[fawwaxs]

According to police, the boy’s father Raja Naqash Saeed was waiting for a taxi to leave for airport to take a flight back to Britain after a two-week holiday when the robbers barged into the house.



His uncle Raja Shahid Bashir told police that he had opened the gate of the house at about 11pm to let a taxi in, when at least four armed men entered the house and held the family and the taxi driver at gunpoint.



They were armed with pistols and one of them had hand grenades. According to Bashir, the robbers confined 10 members of the family and the taxi driver in a room and ransacked the house for more than two hours. After looting cash and jewellery, they snatched the boy, Sahil Saeed, and demanded 100,000 pounds for his release. They escaped in the taxi which was found abandoned in another area of the town.



Bashir said the robbers had told the family that they would call them at 7am on Thursday but no call was received. “They have taken away my boy Sahil,” Mr Saeed told reporters, his eyes filled with tears.



Agencies add: The boy’s mother, Akila Naqqash, broke down and appealed to the kidnappers to free her “sweet little son”.



“All I want is my son back safe, what has he done?” she told Sky News television, sobbing: “He’s only a little five-year-old boy, what has he done? Just bring him back, please.” But she did not know how to help him, adding: “All I can do is just pray.”



Saeed told Sky News that the kidnappers had given a now-passed noon (0700 GMT) deadline to pay the 100,000 pounds but he said he could not pay. “They took me into a separate room and tortured me. They said ‘we will take your son and you will have to pay 100,000 pounds’,” he said.



“I told them I don’t have that much money… I can’t afford that.” They took my son. They were fully loaded with guns and hand grenades,” he said, adding that his family was beaten, slapped and kicked by the robbers during a six-hour ordeal.



Police blamed a local gang for the kidnapping and said they had launched a full-scale investigation to recover the child. The attackers probably knew the family and were aware of their imminent departure before dawn on Thursday, Regional Police Officer Mohammad Aslam Khan Tareen said.



“We are interrogating the taxi driver and hopefully the culprits will be traced in the next 24 to 48 hours. Our top priority is to recover the child without any harm,” he said. A report from Islamabad said that the British High Commission was in touch with the family.

DAWN.COM | Provinces | British boy kidnapped in Jhelum, family robbed

 

[fawwaxs]

Police steps up bid to recover British boy

JHELUM: Pakistani police said Friday teams were working round the clock to recover a five-year-old British boy kidnapped during a family holiday as his father begged for his son's release.

Robbers snatched Sahil Saeed from his grandmother's house in the town of Jhelum about 100 kilometres (65 miles) south of the capital Islamabad on Thursday, stealing jewellery and cash, and demanding a 120,000-dollar ransom.

They stormed into the house and held the family at gunpoint while Sahil and his Pakistani father were preparing to get a taxi to the airport and fly home to Oldham in northwest England, relatives and officials said.

Police said they were working round the clock to recover the child from a presumed kidnapping gang, but a local member of parliament confirmed only one arrest - the taxi driver.

“We are investigating the incident and interrogating various people. We have questioned many people. We didn't sleep last night and four-five teams are working to recover the boy,” police official Raja Mohammad Tahir told AFP.

“We are hopeful and doing our best. Pray for us. We cannot give any timeline, but hopefully we will succeed in recovering him,” he added.

From his mother's large villa, Raja Naqqash Saeed appealed for his son's release, saying he feared his young son would not be able to communicate with his captors because he speaks only English.

“I request the kidnappers to please send back my son. He is very mature but he cannot speak Urdu or Punjabi. I am worried how he would communicate with them if he is hungry or he needs to go to the toilet,” he told AFP.

Overcome with anguish back in England, Sahil's mother Akila Naqqash broke down when she heard about her son's abduction.

“He's only a little five-year-old boy, what has he done? Just bring him back, please,” she told Sky News television, calling Sahil “a sweet little boy” and saying all she could do was pray for his release.

Her husband said the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of 10 million rupees (120,000 dollars) - but said he could not pay.

“Four armed men barged into the garden,” he told AFP, adding that they carried loaded guns and grenades.

“They thrashed me, my brother and his wife and our uncle... They searched the house and took money, gold, whatever they saw, they just took it,” he said.

The British High Commission in Pakistan said it was providing assistance to the family and working with the local authorities.

“We're continuing to keep in close touch with both the family in the UK and the family in Pakistan,” spokesman George Sherriff told AFP.

“We're following the case very closely. The Pakistani police are taking this quite seriously. The Serious and Organised Crime Agency are also in contact with the Pakistani authorities,” he said.

Nighat Parveen Mir, a member of parliament for Jhelum who visited the family on Friday, said police arrested the taxi driver booked to take the father and son to the airport.

“This is a very sad incident. Such incidents should not happen. The police are trying their best and are fully focused on this incident,” she said.

Phil Woolas, member of parliament for Oldham and a government minister, warned Britain might have to review its travel advice for the area.

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Police steps up bid to recover British boy

 

[FlickerSingh]

pray that the child is returned unharmed

 

[Spring Onion]

The robbers might be aided by some of the relatives of the family for making easy money

 

[Spring Onion]

kidnapping 'could be inside job', official says

A Pakistani official suggested this morning that the abduction of a young British boy on a family holiday in Punjab could have been "a sort of inside job".

Sahil Saeed, 5, was taken by raiders armed with guns and grenades after they robbed the family home in Jhelum in the early hours yesterday. The family had been preparing to head home after a short visit to a sick grandmother.

The gang tortured Raja Naqqash Saeed, 28, the child’s father, for five hours before demanding a £100,000 ransom that the family says it has no chance of raising.

Raja Tahir, a senior Punjab police officer, said that several people were being questioned who might be linked to the kidnappers. The driver of the taxi who brought the gunmen to the house where Sahil was staying has also been questioned.

Related Links
Mother begs: please don’t hurt my little son
Analysis: a thriving industry in Pakistan
Kidnappers demand £100,000 for British child
"We have not arrested anyone yet, but have made some important progress in the investigation," Mr Tahir said.

Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the Pakistani High Commissioner in the UK, said he believed that officers in Punjab were "on the right track". He also told GMTV that detectives were looking at whether the gang had inside knowledge on the family's movements.

"We are committed to recovering the young boy. All our resources are being directed ... in Punjab," Mr Hasan said.

"The initial investigation is also looking at the possibility of a sort of inside job as well. There’s a possibility of someone in the family having some sort of knowledge."

A major concern for the family, however, is that the kidnappers have not yet contacted them — which suggests that they may have been scared off.

Sahil's distraught mother wept yesterday as she appealed to the kidnappers not to harm her son.

Akila Naqqash, 31, did not join her husband on the trip and was waiting anxiously at the family’s terrace home in Shaw, Oldham, for news.

“We have not heard anything from the kidnappers,” she said. “All we can do is wait. We have no idea why we were targeted. We do not have any money. There is no way we could raise any — there is nothing that we can do.

"I would say to the kidnappers, just why have you done this? He is just a little boy, just five years old. He was due to come home today, please don’t hurt him. My husband would swap places if he could. He said to them, ‘Take me, I’ll be your hostage’. We just want him back home.”

The extended family in England share two neighbouring houses on a typical Oldham street. Mr Saeed is understood to be unemployed. His wife works at a nearby Iceland store.

Mr Saeed was said to have been in an hysterical state when he telephoned his brother in England yesterday to tell him of the attack. Sahil’s mother was told of the kidnap as she was serving breakfast to her daughters Anisha, 4, and Hafsah, 21 months. Her sister-in-law knocked on the front door at 7.45am and broke the news.

“I just broke down and thought it cannot be true,” Ms Naqqash said. “I phoned my husband and he said it was. I just cried and cried.

“He is just a really sweet little boy. He is tiny. He would not hurt anyone. I phoned him every day for the last two weeks. When we last spoke he just said he could not wait to come home and have a jacket potato. He was fed up with chapatis. He loves jacket potatoes with sweetcorn, cucumber, salad.”

Pakistani police sources suggested the raiders struck after the family opened the gates at their house when a taxi arrived to take them to the airport.

Four men forced their way in and ransacked the house, holding the family at gunpoint for some hours. The robbers stole cash and jewellery and grabbed the child as they fled.

The child speaks no Punjabi and may not be able to make himself understood to his captors. The kidnappers backed up their ransom demands with threats of harming the boy.

His father said that he had been waiting by the phone but had not heard from the kidnappers since a deadline for payment of the ransom had passed.

“The kidnappers are going to ring me. I do not know what they are going to say to me. I do not have that much money,” he said. “They took me into the separate room and they tortured me. They said, ‘We will take your son and you will have to pay £100,000’.”


Mother begs Pakistan kidnappers: He’s just a little boy, please don’t hurt him (includes video)

 

[Hyde]

bad news.............. half of the Pakistanis living in UK belong to Jhelum/Azad Kashmir (wild guess)

I hope her son is recovered peacefully

and blame his relatives for nothing is also very bad Jana Jee.......... there is a possibility for sure but blaming relatives without knowing any information about their family is very bad

 

[Thunder Omni Role]

Crazy bastards don't want to work so they target foreigner pakistani thinking they have lot of money. Criminals should be robbed of their testicles and thrown in Jehlum river.

 

[AHMED85]

indeed sad news
Now the police responsibility to escape him safe and sound may god bless on him............
after all sad for us...

 

[fawwaxs]

British Boy Kidnapped In Pakistan Found

Pakistan's Law minister has confirmed to Sky News that the British boy kidnapped in the Punjab Province - Sahil Saeed - has been found.

The minister says the five-year-old boy, who was recovered yesterday, is safe and "in very good health".

He confirmed to Sky's Asia Correspondent, Alex Crawford, that the boy was recovered in Sialkot, a town near to where he was taken.

Senior Pakistani police have told Sky News that a number of arrests have been made, including one woman.

Authorities confirmed that members of Sahil Saeed's family were involved in his disappearance.

British diplomats are "urgently" checking reports of the boy's recovery, but so far the Foreign Office has no confirmation.

Alex Crawford says: "The Pakistani authorities deliberately kept the boy's recovery secret because of fears over his safety.

Akila Naqqash and picture of her son Sahil

Mother of the kidnapped boy

"Sources, who wish to remain unnamed, have said to me that Raja Naqqash Saeed and his son have not left Pakistan."

She added: "Despite reports yesterday that the father had returned home, he was not on any passenger lists for planes leaving Pakistan yesterday.

"Sources have told us that Raja Naqqash Saeed was receiving threats from people connected to the kidnapping even before the boy went missing.

"It's been suggested that when he disappeared a couple of days ago he'd been taken into protective custody."

At the boy's family home near Oldham, his mother and immediate family have not been given any information about Sahil's release.

British Boy Kidnapped In Pakistan Sahil Saeed Has Been Found | World News | Sky News

 

[Creder]

dont worry inshallah they will get him, believe me guys pakistani police gets not enough credit for the work they put in.

 

[Spring Onion]

police dismiss release reports

Police in Pakistan have dismissed reports a British boy who was kidnapped last week has been released.

Five-year-old Sahil Saeed from Oldham, Greater Manchester, was seized by an armed gang while staying with relatives last week.

A Punjab minister has been reported as saying the boy was found on Wednesday and has been handed over to his father.

But Kahlid Mahmoud, superintendent of the police investigation in Jhelum, has told the BBC the reports are false.

'Closing in'

And Muhammad Aslam Tareen, a detective based in Punjab, said he could "categorically confirm" the child is still missing.

Mr Tareen said: "We are closing in, yes. But have we found him yet? No. We hope to have something in the next 24 to 48 hours."

A British High Commission spokesman in Islamabad said UK diplomats are "urgently chasing" reports that Sahil has been released, and added that he had received "no evidence" the boy had been found.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad said: "There is no independent verification of reports he has been released."

Pakistan's High Commissioner to the UK, Wajid Hasan, told the BBC he was attempting to clarify the situation back in Pakistan.

On Wednesday the BBC learned Sahil's father Raja Saeed had returned to the UK against the wishes of Pakistani police.

Sahil had been taken from his grandmother's home in Jhelum, Punjab, as he prepared to take a taxi to the airport for his flight to the UK.

Mother's pleas

Several men, including a taxi driver, have been arrested since the kidnap.

Four police officers were suspended after it emerged they did not initially respond to the family's emergency call.

On Saturday, Sahil's mother Akila Naqqas pleaded for his safe return, saying she would forgive his son's captors if they released him.

She also said Sahil had never been apart from either herself or her husband.

The attackers are said to have demanded a £100,000 ransom for his return.

Pakistani community groups in Oldham have said they are considering setting up a fund to pay ransoms in the event of kidnaps.

The UK government has a policy of not paying ransoms and advises third parties against doing so, arguing that this would encourage future kidnappings.

BBC News - Pakistan kidnap police dismiss release reports

 

[Windjammer]

The ARY News is reporting that Pakistan's Ambassador to UK has confirmed that the kidnapped young boy is back in Britain with his parents.