MUZAFFARABAD: A seven-week-old ‘abduction’ case of a British nationality holder woman and her nephew in Mirpur division of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) turned out to be stage-managed by her spouse to implicate three persons over some financial dispute, senior police officials said on Tuesday.

On Feb 16, Ghulam Murtaza reported to Islamgarh police station in Mirpur that his British national spouse Zahida Parveen, 55, and her nephew Ilyas Ahmed, 31, were missing since last evening after they had gone to collect around Rs230 million from three residents of Dadyal which they owed to them in financial and real estate deals.

The complainant stated that since the mobile phones of his spouse and nephew were also switched off, he suspected that they had been kidnapped or killed.

The complainant was insisting on registration of FIR against three residents of Dadyal for the “kidnapping” but the police, who were suspicious of the claim, treated the issue as a case of missing persons rather than abduction and launched investigations under section 157(2) of Penal Code, said Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Mirpur region Dr Khalid Chauhan.

Interestingly, the case had drawn wide attention on social and traditional media, with some TV channels criticising the police for not registering the FIR against the three men nominated by Mr Murtaza in his complaint.

The DIG said after fast-paced investigations on the most modern lines with assistance from Nadra and FIA’s cybercrime wing, a special police team finally got hold of the “abductees” from Lahore.

The duo was produced before an executive magistrate in Mirpur on Monday for their statement under section 164 of CrPC wherein they confessed that Mr Murtaza had staged the kidnapping with the help of three persons to press the Dadyal residents into returning their money, he said.

SSP Mirpur Kamran Ali, who led the investigations, told Dawn that Mr Murtaza sent three persons in a double cabin pickup who intercepted the car at an already decided place on the outskirts of Islamgarh on Feb 15, broke Ms Parveen’s bangles and rubbed blood on them as well as on a door of their Toyota car so as to give it a look of forced kidnapping.

They abandoned the car at the same place and took the duo along with them in the double cabin pickup to Sarai Alamgir from where they moved to Lahore after four days, he said.

Since the suspects had staged kidnapping and wanted to falsely implicate some people in kidnapping/murder, they had been booked under sections 365/a, 120/b and 109/34 of Penal Code, the SSP said.

He said the duo was produced before a judicial magistrate which sent the man on police remand and the woman on judicial remand until April 16.

The SSP said the police had in the meanwhile also apprehended one of the three persons who had assisted Mr Murtaza, but the main suspect [Murtaza] himself was still at large.

“We will hunt him down soon,” the SSP said.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2022