Skip to main content

Journalist in Khairpur staged his own kidnapping for ransom: police

A journalist from Sindh’s Khairpur district “faked his own kidnapping,” police said on Sunday, after a video posted on his Facebook account showed him chained and pleading for release, claiming to have been abducted by dacoits for a ransom of Rs10 million.

The video posted on Friday, which also showed the journalist, Fayyaz Solangi, being tortured by a masked armed man, sparked a strong outcry from the journalist community in the upper region of Sindh, leading to demonstrations in several towns on Saturday.

Solangi’s colleague, Ghulam Hussain Chang, said at Hingorja Press Club that the journalist went missing on Jan 12, with his motorcycle found parked along a link road around 7:00 pm. Police and fellow journalists searched for him but failed to locate him. After the video confirmed his abduction, Solangi’s uncle claimed that he received a call from kidnappers demanding Rs10 million ransom.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah later directed the Sindh inspector-general of police to recover the journalist and submit a report.

In a joint press conference today, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Khairpur Tawheed Memon and SSP Kashmore Zubair Nazir Shaikh said that the police had recovered the journalist by conducting an operation in the Kashmore area.

“However, Fayyaz Solangi had pretended to be abducted to make a false case against his cousins, with whom he had a land dispute,” SSP Memon said. “The journalist had concocted a drama to make a false case against his cousins.”

The officials added that the journalist’s uncle, Mazhar Solangi, was also arrested in Khairpur for being the “main character behind the fake kidnapping.”

Meanwhile, in a statement, KTN News Group, Solangi’s employer, confirmed his dismissal for faking his kidnapping and stated that the organisation no longer had any association with him.



from The Dawn News - Home https://ift.tt/dH12C3S

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Explainer: Iran’s economy faces rocky road amid rising prices, falling currency

Iran’s economy is going through one of its most difficult periods in years, fueled by sanctions, high inflation, and a significant drop in the value of the national currency, the rial. These pressures have had a direct impact on living standards and have also fueled recent protests. The protests began on Dec. 28 in commercial hubs in the capital Tehran, when shopkeepers, merchants, and small business owners staged strikes and demonstrations to protest soaring inflation, the collapsing rial, and deteriorating economic conditions, and have since grown into nationwide anti-government expressions of discontent involving workers, students, and others across multiple cities. The Iranian president said Sunday that his government is determined to address Iran’s economic problems amid the protests. Masoud Pezeshkian said the government admits to “shortcomings and problems” and is working hard to alleviate the people’s concerns, especially on the economy. Currency collapse at the centre of c...

Mitchell Starc surpasses Wasim Akram as most prolific left-arm pacer in Test history

Australian veteran Mitchell Starc became the most prolific left-arm paceman in Test history on Thursday, surpassing Pakistan great Wasim Akram. The 35-year-old bagged England’s Harry Brook at the Gabba in Brisbane on day one of the day-night second Ashes Test for his 415th wicket since his debut at the same ground 14 years ago. It moved him past Wasim, widely recognised as the greatest left-arm bowler the sport has seen. Wasim played 104 Tests for his 414 wickets with Starc reaching the milestone in his 102nd, helped by a career-best 7-58 in the first innings of the opening Ashes Test at Perth. Starc is now 16th on the all-time wicket-taker list and could move above both India’s Harbhajan Singh (417) and South Africa’s Shaun Pollock (421) in the current pink-ball Test. After that he will have New Zealand’s Richard Hadlee (431) in his sights. from Dawn - Home https://ift.tt/xclHiX2

Global reaction to potential Israel-Hezbollah ‘spiral of violence’

World leaders on Tuesday sounded the alarm over fears of a wider conflict after Lebanon suffered its deadliest day in two decades in Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds. After nearly a year of cross-border fire since the Gaza offensive erupted, Israeli bombardment on Monday killed 558 people in Lebanon, including 50 children, according to the country’s health ministry. The toll — the highest since Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah went to war in mid-2006 — raised fears of an all-out conflict engulfing the Middle East. ‘Tens of thousands’ flee: UN UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “gravely alarmed by the escalating situation… and the large number of civilian casualties, including children and women,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “Tens of thousands of people were forced from their homes yesterday and overnight, and the numbers continue to grow,” United Nations refugee agency spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh said in Geneva. ‘Spiral of violence’: US Israel’s clo...