Net closes on kidnap gang

Reporter: Marina Berry
Date online: 08 March 2010

POLICE in Pakistan are closing in on the men who snatched five–year–old Shaw boy Sahil Saeed, authorities said today.

And the kidnappers have been warned to let him go unharmed by police chiefs who have pledged to come down hard on the gang.

Officials have constantly claimed over the weekend they were within hours of finding the Rushcroft School pupil, who was snatched at gunpoint from his grandmother’s house in Jhelum on Wednesday night.

But the raised hopes of his family here in Oldham proved fruitless, and they have been keeping a sleepless vigil at his Queen Street home, praying for the youngster and appealing for help from Prime Minster Gordon Brown and other world leaders.

His heartbroken mother, Akila Naqqash, who works in a supermarket, made several emotional appeals, saying she will forgive his kidnappers if they return her son.

But police in Jhelum are reportedly concerned that the huge publicity surrounding the case will make the kidnappers panic, knowing the punishment will be severe if they are caught. Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik said police have clues that indicate the crime was carried out by people close to the boy’s family— a claim strongly denied by the family.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Jhelum, Mr Malik said: “We have certain leads that I would not like to discuss.”

The boy’s father, Raja Naqqash Saeed, received a telephone call from the Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani saying everything possible was being done.

Mr Saeed said today that he was satisfied with the Pakistani government’s efforts after meeting with Mr Malik.

“My son will come back home safely, God willing,” he said. Yesterday, five police officers were suspended amid concerns of how the case was handled following the initial report.

And the taxi which was to take Sahil and his father, Raja, to the airport, and which was instead used as a getaway car by the gang, was found abandoned by police who followed a tracker device.

Unemployed Mr Saeed (28), earlier told Sky News the kidnappers demanded £100,000 in ransom, and it is understood the demand has since been repeated in phone calls.

Further reports state that Mr Saeed had taken his wife’s passport with him so she could not follow, after a row, but they patched up their disagreements when family elders intervened.

Sahil was taken following a six-hour ordeal in which his father was beaten and held at gunpoint.