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Thugs beat cabbie with an iron bar
Two thugs lured a taxi driver to a secluded spot and viciously beat him after making threats to kidnap him and demand a £125,000 ransom from his family.
Abid Fazal, 34, a driver for Banktop Private Hire Cars, was recovering in hospital today after the assault in which he was beaten with a metal bar and repeatedly kicked.
He only managed to escape by pretending to call the police on a mobile phone which scared off his attackers, and then fleeing for help at a nearby farmhouse.
Now police have launched a hunt for the two men who carried out the unprovoked attack.
Mr Fazal's brother, Sajid Fazal, who works as a driver for the same private hire firm, said Abid had been left dazed and severely injured after the attack, but had managed to recount what happened.
The father-of-four told how he had picked up the men at the Stag's Head pub in Queensbury, Bradford, after they telephoned the company and requested a minibus at 8.30pm on Thursday night.
The passengers sat in the back of the vehicle and asked to be taken to Leeds, but requested that Mr Fazal stop elsewhere in Queensbury to collect some friends. He was directed down Station Road in Queensbury and down a dirt track.
"It is a track and it is very, very difficult to turn a van around there. You can only get out by reversing," said Mr Fazal. He said his brother described how one of the men got out and went to open the driver's door.
He said: "He had a metal bar hidden under his coat. The other one grabbed him by his throat. They took him into the back of the van and started beating him up with the bar. They smashed his head, his nose and his lips."
Mr Fazal said his brother offered money to the two men, but they demanded a ransom of £125,000, which they said should be collected from his family and friends.
Mr Fazal managed to throw the minibus keys into long grass before escaping the vehicle and running away, but the men caught up with him and began kicking him.
When the attackers paused Mr Fazal again managed to escape. He kicked off his shoes in a bid to run faster and pretended to call police on his mobile phone, which caused his attackers to flee.
He ran to a nearby house where a female occupant called the police and paramedics.
Mr Fazal said his brother would have died if he had not managed to escape.
"He opened his van and he legged it, they had said it would be his last day.
"It was planned, they took him to the right location, the timing and the darkness. It was a dead end where you cannot turn the van around.
"I have never seen injuries like that in my life, the injuries are really bad," he said.
Abid Fazal's wife Rehana Kauser, 32, said she was "devastated" when she saw her husband in Bradford Royal Infirmary.
"His worst injuries were his eyes, he could not open them that night. He had three broken bones in his nose, he had a slit through his nose where he had about five stitches and he had a wound at the back of his head and stitches in that," she said.
Mr Fazal also suffered back and leg injuries. And she said she feared for her husband's life because of threats issued by his attackers.
"They are not going to let him go, they said they would come and get him."
She said she often worried about the risk posed by her husband's job.
Mr Fazal, who has worked as a private hire driver for eight years, said: "The problem with this job is you don't know if you are going to go home alive. You could be picking up anybody."
A spokesman for Bradford Hospital Trust said Mr Fazal, who has been kept in at Bradford Royal Infirmary, was in a "satisfactory" condition.
A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "Officers know the suspects were in the Stags Head pub at around 8pm and are appealing for anyone who was in the pub at the time and may have any information regarding this incident to come forward."
The two men are described as being around 30 to 40 years old, around 5ft 10ins, of stocky build and with grey hair.
They were dressed all in black and also had black gloves. One of the men was drinking half a pint of lemonade, and the other was drinking coffee. Following the assault they made off in the direction of Halifax Road.
Police are also appealing to anyone who was in the Station Road area at the time to come forward.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Lowcroft House CID on (01274) 376259 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.
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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin
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