Police Launch Raids to Find Kidnap Boy
Several arrests made overnight in effort to find Sahil Saeed, five, who was snatched from his grandmother’s home at gunpoint
A senior Pakistani diplomat said today that a relative could have been involved in the kidnapping of a British boy.
Sahil Saeed, five, was snatched from his grandmother’s house in Pakistan’s Jhelum city early yesterday after robbers held the family at gunpoint for several hours.
Wajid Hassan, the Pakistani high commissioner to Britain, said police were investigating whether someone in Sahil’s family was involved.
“The perception is that they had a lot of money,” Hassan said. “So somebody from inside of the family who is less fortunate might have arranged it.”
Earlier, he told GMTV that police were on the right track.
“The initial investigation is also looking at the possibility of a sort of inside job. There’s a possibility of someone in the family having some sort of knowledge,” he said.
Police searching for Sahil, of Oldham, Greater Manchester, carried out a number of raids overnight and arrested eight people, sources said.
Early suspicion focused on a taxi driver who was booked to take Sahil and his father, Raja Naqqash Saeed, 28, to the airport for their return to England after a two-week visit.
“God willing, we will recover the boy very soon,” police investigator Raja Tahir Bashir said. “We are doing whatever is possible.”
Bashir said multiple suspects were being questioned but he would not give further details.
Sky News reported that police were examining call records of mobile phones stolen in the robbery.
Saeed said the kidnappers had demanded a £100,000 ransom, which the family was unable to pay.
Phil Woolas, the immigration minister and MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, said the police were following strong leads.
He told the BBC: “Obviously the time is going by and police have made arrests. This is the number one priority for the Foreign Office in Pakistan but the focus is still on the police operation.
“They have made some arrests and there have been strong leads but of course it’s a very focused and intense investigation there. This little boy is getting the full support of the British government and authorities.”
The British high commission was unable to provide details of the arrests in Pakistan this morning.
When asked if police were investigating whether it was an inside job, a spokesman said: “Police are investigating all areas.”
Yesterday Sahil’s mother, Akila Naqqash, 31, wept as she said: “He’s just a sweet little boy. He’s a five-year-old boy. What has he done?”
Sahil had been on a two-week visit to his sick grandmother in Jhelum, 75 miles south-east of Islamabad, with his father.
When their taxi arrived and the door was opened four men burst in. Up to 10 family members were held at gunpoint for six hours, during which they were beaten, tied up, kicked and slapped, before the attackers escaped with cash, jewellery and the terrified boy, who does not speak Urdu or Punjabi.
The taxi driver was the same man who had picked up the boy and his father from the airport when they arrived in Pakistan.
Saeed described how the men “jumped inside” as soon as the door was opened. “They had loaded guns. Straight away they started torturing us, kicking us.”
The men told him they would search the house, and were looking for money and gold. “We told them we would tell them where it was. We said, ‘Don’t shoot anyone. But take whatever you want.’”
He was taken to a separate room during the ordeal. But when the men left at 5am, “they took my son with them. He’s not only my son, we’re friends. I take him with me whenever I go out.”
He begged the kidnappers to let him take his son’s place. “Just tell me where to come and they can keep me. Send him back. They can do what they like with me.”
The case is among a rising number of kidnappings for ransom in Pakistan, where Taliban-led militancy and a struggling economy have fuelled crime. Most victims are Pakistani nationals.
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