A week after the release of five-year-old British toddler Sahil Saeed, who was kidnapped at gunpoint from his grandmother's house in Pakistan's Punjab province's Jhelum earlier this month, Pakistani police officials have revealed that the sensational abduction was masterminded in Britain.

According to a Pakistani police official, the call made by Sahil's kidnappers after he was released originated from the UK, and now the investigations were on to locate the actual place from where the call was made and nab the mastermind.

"There was a call made when the boy was released, the call was to the father, which was made from the UK. So that's where the hunt is now," The Sunday Telegraph quoted the official, as saying.

Police made the discovery while monitoring calls made by the gang members of the kidnappers and examining SIM cards in mobiles seized in Pakistan and Spain, where key members of the gang were arrested last week.

Sahil was released 14 days later after he was kidnapped on March 4 following his family reportedly paying a ransom of 110,000 pounds to the members of the kidnapping gang in Paris.

Investigation into the kidnapping case suggests that the abduction was co-ordinated, and possibly even conceived, by someone in Britain who was familiar with Sahil's family.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's High Commissioner in Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, has said that there are reports that the kidnappers knew the family closely.

"The people that have been arrested in Pakistan, they must have known the family well.

They have had some kind of grudge against them which is why they kidnapped the child and tried to blackmail the father," Hasan said. (ANI)