Five suspects indicted for kidnapping Dua Mangi in November 2019

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Saturday indicted five suspects for the high-profile kidnapping case of a girl, Dua Mangi, who was abducted in Defence Housing Authority in November 2019.

The ATC-II framed charges on Muzaffar, Tariq, Zuhaib Qureshi, Waseem Raja and Fayyaz Qureshi for allegedly abducting Dua and demanding ransom for her release.

Meanwhile, the judge declared the alleged mastermind of the gang, Agha Mansoor Hussain, who is a former cop, a proclaimed offender and ordered police to arrest him and present him in the court.

The court has fixed January 25 to begin the trial of the suspects, ordering the prosecution to bring witnesses on the next hearing. According to the prosecution, the accused abducted Mangi in November 2019 in Defence Housing Authority and shot her friend Haris Soomro for resisting the abduction, critically injuring him. She was set free later after her family had paid ransom to the kidnappers.

The same suspects have also been chargesheeted in the kidnapping case of Bisma Salim who was also abducted in DHA in May 2019. Like Dua, she was also released after payment

of ransom.

According to the investigators, both the abducted girls were kept in a flat in Clifton. The investigators said the FSL report of the weapons recovered from Muzaffar and Zuhaib had also matched with the bullet casing found at the crime scene.

The car used in the offence was recovered from a man, Solangi, who has been chargesheeted under the sections 201 and 202 of the Pakistan Penal Code while the remaining suspects under the kidnapping for ransom charges.

Karachi Additional Inspector General of Police (Addl IGP) Ghulam Nabi Memon had on March 18, 2020, made the announcement that police had arrested the kidnappers of Bisma and Dua.

The Karachi police chief said that these cases were a major challenge for all the relevant law enforcement and intelligence security agencies. He added that the kidnappers’ ringleader was Mansoor who had provided his accomplices with SIM cards and other relevant

assistance.

He said the detained suspects told the police that the plan to kidnap Bisma and Dua had been made by Mansoor. The officer said the suspects also admitted to trying to avoid being tracked down by using technical apparatus, including social networking apps.

He said the detained suspects were habitual criminals, who were earlier also involved in vehicle lifting and other kidnappings and a few months ago, their gang engaged in a shoot-out with police in District East within the jurisdiction of the Aziz Bhatti police station but they managed to escape, leaving a police constable injured.