A five-year old British boy who was kidnapped in Pakistan could be an ‘inside job’, a top official has said.
Sahil Saeed was snatched from his grandmother's house in Pakistan's Jehlum city overnight on March 3 after robbers held the family at gunpoint in a six hour ordeal, British officials and the boy's family said.
The robbers also took some household possessions and demanded a large ransom to return the child, whose picture and story made British and Pakistani front pages.
The Pakistani High Commissioner in the UK suggested a relative of the boy, who was on holiday with his father, could be behind the plot.
Wajid Shamsul Hasan said: “We are committed to recovering the young boy. All our resources are being directed ... in the Punjab. They have arrested a few people.
“The initial investigation is also looking at the possibility of a sort of inside job as well. There's a possibility of someone in the family having some sort of knowledge.”
British Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said arrests had been made in Pakistan and that police were following strong leads. "This is the No. 1 priority for the Foreign Office in Pakistan," he told BBC television.
British officials have been in touch with the boy's parents, who had been scheduled to return to Britain from their holiday on March 4. Sahil's father, Raja Naqqash Saeed, told Sky News the kidnappers have demanded 100,000 British pounds ($150,000) in ransom. "I told them I don't have that much money ... I can't afford that," said Saeed, who the High Commission in Islamabad said was Pakistani and not a dual British citizen.
Criminal gangs are suspected in most kidnappings for ransom in Pakistan, but the Taliban and other militant groups are thought to profit from many of the abductions. The sums demanded can run into the millions of dollars, though the captors often settle for less.
The British boy's mother made an emotional televised appeal for his safe return. "I just want my son back safe," Akila Naqqash told Sky from her home in Manchester, in northern England, as tears ran down her cheeks. "We have got no idea why we were targeted _ we don't have any money."