Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat has asked the law enforcement agencies to recover Assistant Technical Officer Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Ltd (SNGPL) Multan and his four subordinates Javed Masih, Asghar Masih, Javed Ahmed and Riaz Hussain, who were kidnapped on Wednesday when they were returning to Sukkur after repairing the transmission lines.
Law enforcement agencies, including Rangers, failed to find any clue of these employees of the gas company in spite of elapsing 24 hours.
"We are trying to recover the SNGPL employees, including ATO Qazi Irshad Ahmed, and we have organised two special teams to search the kidnappers in their hideouts located in Balochistan province," said DPO Ghotki Aftab Halipota on phone.
He was optimistic that the gas company employees would soon be got freed "because we managed to know about them (kidnappers) that they are Mazaris and now we are contacting the tribal chiefs of this clan." However, the kidnappers did not demand ransom so far.
Sub-divisional police officer Obaro Rana Sanaullah said: "At least 10 armed dacoits kidnapped 15 SNGPL employees on Wednesday evening when they were returning to Sukkur from Goth Punnu Khan Mazari. Later, they released 10 of them who were locals and then they ran away to Balochistan with the remaining five employees.
One of them belongs to Multan and the other four belong to Faisalabad.
When contacted, the SNGPL authorities said, "we are in contact with the interior minister to get them released as early as possible because a state of fear is prevailing among other employees serving in the border area of Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh."