ISLAMABAD: Five low-ranking officials of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Islamabad have been dismissed from services after they were found involved in a kidnapping for ransom case.

Senior officials of the police told Dawn on Tuesday that action had been taken against two sub-inspectors and three constables of the CTD after a departmental inquiry found them `guilty` in the incident of kidnapping an Afghan businessman and laterreleasing him after receiving money.

Giving details, they said the dismissed officials had raided a business centre of the Afghan national located in Blue Area few weeks ago.

During the search operation, the team recovered huge amount from the centre and arrested the Afghan national, who remained under `illegal detention` at the CTD building for few hours.

Later, they said, the arrested man was released after receiving extortion money. The CTD men had demanded cash in exchange for the businessman`s freedom, threatening to fabricate a case against him if he didn`t comply.

After his release from the captivity, the victim brought the matter into the notice of senior police officials who directed the concerned CTD officer to conductaninquiry.

During the inquiry, the CTD offi-cials were found guilty and they were asked to return the money to the businessman.

However, they failed to return the whole amount as they had already spent some of the money.

On the basis of the inquiry, they said, all the five personnel were dismissed from the service.

Sources in the police told Dawn that in another incident, a foreign national complained to the senior police officers that some police personnel in uniform allegedly raided his house located in the area of Kohsar police station and took away millions of rupees.

They said that a police team had raided the house on reports that the foreigner was involved in some financial scams, including skimming.

After the incident, the foreigner contacted the senior police officials and informed them about the incident,terming it as `robbery`.

In this case too, the sources said, the CTD officials had been asked to return the `looted amount` to the foreigner.

The police personnel, the sources said, returned most of the amount to the foreigner on the condition that the man would not initiate any legal action against the police officers.

When contacted, Deputy Inspector General of Police (Operations) Jawad Tariq confirmed the first incident, stating that the CTD officials were found guilty and they had been dismissed from the service.

The DIG said whenever they received any complaint about the involvement of police personnel in some illegal activities, an inquiry was ordered and strict action was taken against those found involved in such activities.

He, however, did not talk about the second incident.