**Police in Pakistan have dismissed reports a British boy who was kidnapped last week has been released.**Five-year-old Sahil Saeed from Oldham, Greater Manchester, was seized by an armed gang while staying with relatives last week.
A Punjab minister has now said that the boy was found on Wednesday and has been handed over to his father.
But Kahlid Mahmoud, superintendent of the police investigation in Jhelum, has told the BBC the reports are false.
The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad said: “There is no independent verification of reports he has been released.”
A High Commission spokesman said UK diplomats are checking reports that Sahil has been released.
Sahil had been taken from his grandmother’s home in Jhelum, Punjab, as he prepared to take a taxi to the airport for his flight to the UK.
Several men, including a taxi driver, have been arrested since the kidnap.
Four police officers were suspended after it emerged they did not initially respond to the family’s emergency call.
On Saturday, Sahil’s mother Akila Naqqas pleaded for his safe return, saying she would forgive his son’s captors if they released him.
She also said Sahil had never been apart from either herself or her husband.