LAHORE: Court in Lahore has granted a five-day physical remand of four suspects accused of allegedly abducting two foreign women in a case linked to a reported ransom demand involving crypto.
The suspects were produced before Judicial Magistrate Azhar Mahmood at the Cantonment Courts. After reserving its decision, the court approved the police request for a five-day physical remand. Police had sought a 14-day remand, but the court granted custody for five days. Following the order, the suspects were taken into police custody.
The case has been registered at Defence C Police Station in Lahore. The FIR was lodged on the complaint of a Dutch woman who was recovered after the alleged incident.
According to the FIR, the alleged abduction took place on June 29. The complainant stated that she had met a man from Lahore while in Singapore. She alleged that the man invited both women to Pakistan and also arranged their visas.
The FIR further states that on June 29, the man, his boss, and three other individuals allegedly abducted the two women.
According to the complainant, the abductors behaved “very aggressively” during the incident, while the man who had invited them to Pakistan pretended to be a victim himself.
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The complainant further alleged that the suspects demanded ransom in exchange for their release. She also alleged that her companion was raped multiple times and that an attempt was made to rape her as well.
A significant portion of the FIR has been recorded in English based on the complainant’s statement.
DIG Operations Lahore Faisal Kamran told BBC Urdu that the father of one of the recovered women called the police helpline 15 from Spain. He informed police that his daughter had arrived in Pakistan two days earlier and that during their last conversation she had told him she had been abducted by the suspects named in the FIR, who were demanding $1.5 million in crypto for their release.
The senior police officer said that whenever such a call is received from abroad, senior officers and the Chief Minister’s House are informed immediately.
According to DIG Faisal Kamran, as soon as the call was received, the Chief Minister directed police to recover the two women and arrest the suspects within two hours.
He said the caller from Spain also informed police that the woman had managed to tell her father the registration number of the vehicle in which the suspects were taking them.
However, the DIG said the two women had come to Pakistan of their own free will and had been sharing updates and photographs of their movements with their families.
“We immediately obtained all the photographs from the families, including images showing the vehicle in which they were travelling with the suspects. Using the vehicle’s registration number, we retrieved its details and began tracing it,” he said.
According to DIG Faisal Kamran, CCTV footage helped investigators determine when the vehicle passed through Shahdara, reached Sargodha, travelled to Islamabad, and where it stopped during the journey.
“Following the trail, we eventually reached Lahore’s Defence area, where we conducted a raid and recovered the two women,” he said.
He added that after recovering the women, police used information provided by the arrested suspects to apprehend the remaining suspects.
