Kidnapping college head

Even if for creating a law and order situation, the kidnapping in broad daylight on Saturday morning of the principal of Elementary College in tehsil Jamrud of Khyber Agency was unfortunate. Snatching two Kalashnikov guns from the jawans of the ‘Khasadar’ force outside the college gate, the armed outlaws picked at gunpoint the unwary head of the college, Professor Razi Shah, just when he was entering the college compound. Protesting against the unprovoked act of lawlessness, the enraged students of the college stormed out onto the main Pak-Afghan highway and blocked the road. In order to clear up the traffic and disperse the college crowd, the ‘Khasadars’ opened fire on the students injuring a passer-by. Protest demonstration by the students showed that they had nothing to do with the kidnapping and some outsiders were behind the mischief. There has lately been a spate of kidnappings in and around Peshawar but in most cases the targets had invariably been either diplomats or traders. Principal of the poorly-funded elementary college in the far-flung tribal area is normally a white-collar salaried person who can barely make both ends meet in the present times of galloping inflation. Such a commonplace figure with highly restricted sources of income cannot ideally be a very favourite target of the organised money-grabbing gangs.

His kidnapping, therefore, appears most likely to have been one of the usual pre-Eid crimes aimed at embarrassing the administration or eliciting a small-time, affordable ransom out of the affected family. At first sight, the designation of the college principal appears glamorous to outsiders but an extended look at their financial status, especially in case of the honest and conscientious breed, can leave the kidnappers aghast to the extent of offering something in compensation to the victim. The Khyber Agency administration will hopefully intervene on humanitarian grounds to secure his release so that the education official can spend his Eid with immediate family.