GUJRANWALA/ISLAMABAD: Turkish law enforcement agencies have recovered six Pakistani men who had been abducted for ransom allegedly by Kurdish pirates.

Turkish law enforcement authorities told the Consulate General of Pakistan in Istanbul on Wednesday that men rescued have been identified as Fazal Amin, Adil Ahmad, Muhammad Zeeshan, Abid, Usman Ali and Ashbar Ahmad.

According to a statement by the Foreign Office, Turkish authorities are now completing legal formalities to deal with the case. The statement says that the Consulate officials are in contact with police and have sought access to the rescued men.

In Gujranwala, Magistrate Allah Yar Bhatti handed over custody of three suspected human traffickers to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on a three-day physical remand on Wednesday.

They are accused of trafficking four of the abducted men to Turkey.

Magistrate Bhatti directed the FIA to produce the three suspects in court on Saturday.

The FIA told the court briefly that Sohail, Afzaal and Luqman Butt had received Rs600,000 from Zeeshan, Usman, Abid and Adeel to send them to Turkey. There they met an agent, Wasim Butt, but were later kidnapped by miscreants who tortured them brutally and sent videos of their ordeal to their families on WhatsApp. The kidnappers demanded Rs2 million each as ransom for their release.

Earlier, some relatives of the kidnapped men told Dawn on a condition of anonymity that the miscreants had been negotiating the ransom amount through a person who spoke Pashto. They had threatened to kill the men if the government or law enforcement agencies got involved.

Published in Dawn January 5th, 2017