Police have launched a manhunt for two unidentified men who kidnapped a four-year-old girl in Abu Arish town in Jazan on Friday, but later left her unharmed near a pharmacy not far from her house.

According to a local newspaper, the kidnappers demanded a ransom of SR 300,000 for her release, but later set her free.

“The unidentified kidnappers may have set her free when they realized that the police were hot in their pursuit,” said Col. Awad Al-Qahtani, a spokesman for Jazan police.

The girl was found missing on Friday when her father Osama Meshari returned from the nearby mosque after the evening prayer. The girl had followed her father without him realizing that and the mother thought she had accompanied her father.

Awhile later, Meshari’s brother received a telephone call from a stranger telling him that the girl was safe with him and he would return her against a ransom payment of SR 300,000. “Initially, we thought somebody was pulling our legs. But when the man called again and repeated his demand in a firm tone, we realized that my daughter was in danger,” Meshari said.

When Meshari tried to contact the kidnapper, nobody picked up the phone. He reported the matter to the police, going against the norm of such families informing the cops for fear of the victim’s safety. The local police immediately dispatched patrols and search teams to scour all the suspicious neighborhoods in the city.

“Shortly after the police swung into action, the girl was found behind a medical shop in Zuhur district,” the spokesman said.

Narrating the harrowing experience to her father, the girl, Aleen, said a car pulled up beside her when she was following him and the driver told her to get into the car promising to take her to the mosque. But when she refused and started crying, another man pulled her into the car and gagged her.

They drove off and after a little while, they stopped in front of a building and carried her inside it. She kept on crying imploring them to take her to her mother. Later, they dropped her behind a medical shop, she said, adding that she was not harmed in any way.