The eminent neurosurgeon Dr Aftab Qureshi was allegedly gunned down by his kidnapper during a joint rescue operation supervised by the CPLC chief Ahmed Chennai and SP Noorul Haq Rind of Anti Violent Crime Unit (AVCU) of Karachi police in the morning on May 30. As a result of this rescue operation, an ASI of Karachi police and a kidnapper were also killed.
According to a report in a section of the press, Mr Chennai was quoted as saying that taking advantage of the heavy firing, two other hostages, Dr Ashok and his mother Kamla, managed to escape. This shows that the rescue team was not aware of the presence of these two hostages before launching the operation to rescue Dr Qureshi. It seems that rescue operation was launched quite unprofessionally and without any proper planning. Due to this, neither the life of Dr Qureshi could be saved nor could any kidnapper be arrested alive. Hence, it was botched rescue attempt.
In ancient times, kidnapping victims were normally rescued by use of physical force. But today to tackle with kidnappings and hostage situation, use of physical force may be disastrous for the victim. Thus for the handling of such situations, the rescuers might have to involve themselves in prolonged delicate negotiations. As many cases has proved, the longer the duration of the negotiation process, the brighter are the chances for the victims to survive and be freed.
There is an urgent need of trained negotiators with the CPLC and AVCU to handle the kidnappers and a hostage situation.
SQN LDR (R) S AUSAF HUSAIN
Karachi
