Pakistani police said on 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 Jhelum on Thursday, stealing jewellery and cash, and demanding a 120,000-dollar ransom.
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. Pakistan has been battling Islamist militants for years, but Jhelum is far from the north-west tribal region, which Washington considers a hub for Taliban and al Qaeda-linked fighters.
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.
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