Three men allegedly involved in the kidnapping of a British boy in Pakistan last month have been killed in a clash with police, a senior police officer said yesterday.
Five-year old Sahil Saeed was taken from his grandmother’s house in the central Pakistani city of Jhelum on March 4.
He was recovered 12 days later after the boy’s uncle had paid a £110,000 (US$168,000) ransom in Paris.
That was largely recovered, however, in an international operation that resulted in five arrests in France and Spain.
Pakistani police said they were ambushed while transporting suspected kidnapper Safeer, who was arrested last month with fellow suspect Imran.
“We were transporting key accused Safeer from a court hearing when two armed men ambushed a police contingent” in the eastern city of Gujrat on Thursday, local police chief Tariq Qureshi said.
“They were heavily armed, loaded with rocket launchers, grenades and assault rifles and they managed to secure Safeer’s release,” Qureshi said.
He said police later encircled them and killed the three men.
“The encounter lasted about one hour,” he said, adding there were no police casualties.
“Later on, we came to know the two men who tried to rescue Safeer were his relatives and accomplices in the British boy’s kidnapping,” he said.
They were wanted by police in various other cases of murder and robbery, Qureshi said.
The other accused Imran was still in police custody, he said.
Kidnappings of Westerners are rare in Pakistan but abductions of locals are all too common.
They are often related to family quarrels, love affairs, property disputes or simply quests for money — particularly for the wealthier victims — by criminal gangs, some of whom are connected to Islamist militant networks.
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