Kidnapped British boy of Pakistani origin recovered

ISLAMABAD: Sahil Saeed, a British boy of Pakistani origin who was kidnapped from his family house in Jhelum on March 3 evening, was recovered from Danga village in Pakistan’s Punjab province on Tuesday.
According to media reports, the British High Commission in Islamabad confirmed the recovery of the child and that he has been handed over to Jhelum town administration. The British High Commission thanked the police and administration for their role in the safe recovery of Sahil.
“He has been recovered and is safe,” said Raja Basharat, grandfather of the child.
In a chat with Geo News, Raja Basharat said abductors left the child near a school in Danga village in Kharian and currently he is in custody of Jhelum administration. He said no ransom had been paid for the release of the child.
Earlier, the Pakistani authorities had on March 4 arrested a man over the kidnap of the five-year-old British boy who was snatched at gunpoint.
Police had said they were questioning a taxi driver who had come to pick up the abducted boy, Sahil Saeed, who was snatched in the town of Jhelum, about 100 kilometres south of Islamabad.
The boy had been preparing to fly home at the end of a three-week family holiday visiting his grandmother with his Pakistani father. The father and son were preparing to get the taxi to the airport to fly home to Oldham in northwest England when the robbers stormed into the house, held the family at gunpoint and stole cash and jewellery, officials said.
When the taxi came to pick them up for the airport, four to five people barged into their house, looted cash and jewellery and also took their child with them, regional police chief Aslam Tareen had said.
The boy’s father, Raja Naqqash Saeed, had told foreign media the captors demanded 100,000 pounds sterling ($150,000) in ransom. “I told them I don’t have that much money … I can’t afford that,” Saeed had said.