ASCOTS father yesterday spoke of how his four-year-old son was snatched in Pakistan by a gang of kidnappers who demanded a GBP100,000 ransom.
The boy, Daoud, was held captive for four days before police rescued him. Five men have been charged with his abduction, and may face the death sentence.
At home in the south side of Glasgow, Bilal Afzal described the moment when his son was safely returned to him. He also revealed that one of the alleged kidnappers had been a family friend.
"It was wonderful just to know Daoud was safe, but he was really traumatised.
"He was screaming but there was no sound coming from his mouth, " he said.
Barefoot and trembling, the child had been found by a specialist police unit in a remote village mud hut. According to Mr Afzal, he had survived on little more than chewing gum and cola. He may have been drugged by the gang to keep him calm.
Although he is slowly getting back to normal, the ordeal has had a lasting effect on Daoud. He wakes up crying in the night and is much quieter and more easily frightened than before.
His father said: "He was scared and he's still quite scared. We're trying to get him to go back to nursery and get him back into some kind of routine. But it is difficult."
Mr Afzal's wife, Iffat, had taken Daoud and the couple's other son, two-year-old Suleman, for an extended holiday at her parents' home in Sahiwal, a city about 150 miles from Lahore.
Mr Afzal, who owns a restaurant in Glasgow, stayed behind for the
Christmas period before he flew out to join his family in January.
On January 25, the kidnappers struck. A key figure in the abduction is said to be Ahmed Mushtaq, a friend of the family. It is believed that he led Daoud down the driveway of his grandparents' home, where he was bundled into a car and driven away.
For the next four days, the boy was taken from one hideout to another as Pakistani police tried to track down the kidnap gang.
The abductors made phone calls demanding a GBP100,000 ransom. As the family frantically tried to raise the money, police, aided by an intelligence unit from the Pakistan army, monitored and traced the calls. Three days after the kidnapping, they played a recording of one of them to Mr Afzal.
He said he immediately recognised the voice of Mr Mushtaq, the deceptive friend who was still calling at the house and pretending to help in the search. He was arrested, with police ensuring that he did not have time to reach for his phone and raise the alarm with the rest of the gang.
Mr Mushtaq was forced to arrange a meeting with another of the kidnappers. He, too, was arrested and, when questioned, he gave the locations of four properties where the boy might be. Daoud was found in one of them, under a blanket in a hut in the tiny village of Harappa. Another three abductors were captured in the hut.
Mr Afzal said yesterday: "It was a terrible ordeal for everyone. I wouldn't put my worst enemy through that. It was pretty awful. Daoud was missing in a different country. We didn't know where he was or what was happening to him.
"The police were wonderful."
Of Mr Mushtaq, he said: "He was a nice and apparently innocent young man - until the day we found out. It was just shocking. He was still kicking about the house when all this was happening."
The alleged gang - Mr Mushtaq, Raja Inam, Nadeem Bhullar, Saeed Baloch and Mazhar Dhakkoo - are in custody awaiting trial. Punishment for abduction for financial gain in Pakistan is severe and the five men may face the death sentence.
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