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The father of a five-year-old British boy kidnapped in Pakistan has defied police wishes and returned to Britain.
Raja Naqqash Saeed was not a suspect in the abduction of his son Sahil but Pakistani authorities wanted him to remain in the country as a witness.
Sahil, from Oldham, was seized last Thursday from his grandmother's house in Jhelum in the Punjab by raiders wielding guns and grenades. The boy and his father, who had been about to return to Britain, were subjected to a six-hour ordeal.
Sahil's whereabouts remain unknown despite Pakistani police saying yesterday that they were confident he would be freed within 12 hours. There were rumours he had been found in Jhelum, but a police operation turned out to be merely a drugs raid.
Interpol has been called in, amid fears Sahil may have been taken out of Pakistan. Five Pakistani police officers were suspended after failing to respond to the family's emergency calls. Last week police said Sahil had been taken by someone “very close to the family”.
Shahbaz Ahmad, of the Saddar Police station in Jhelum, had promised: “The boy will be returned to his parents as we are zeroing in on the kidnappers.”
Mr Saeed has appealed for Gordon Brown to order the British government to help. He said the kidnappers believed his family was rich because they were British. The Foreign Office said the British High Commission in Islamabad had been in regular contact with police. Pakistan's prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called Mr Saeed at the weekend to assure him the family had his government's full support.
On Sunday, Sahil's mother, Akila Naqqash, appealed to the abductors to let her son go. Ms Naqqash, 31, said: “I just want my son back. All is forgiven.”
Previous reports suggested that Mr Saeed had taken his son out of school and travelled to Jhelum, leaving his wife and two daughters behind.
The car used by the fleeing kidnappers stopped for eight minutes in the Bilal district of the city. Sahil is believed to have been taken to a hideaway during a changeover of vehicles.
A senior police source said that Mr Saeed took his wife's passport with him to stop her following him after a “major falling out”. But Mr Saeed denied there had been a row and said their priority was finding Sahil. “I wanted to concentrate on the safe and sound recovery of my son and nothing else. I hope, soon, he would be sitting near my heart and in my lap,” he said.
