AFP - The father of a five-year-old British boy held hostage for 12 days in Pakistan said Sunday the kidnappers had threatened to chop off parts of the boy's body if he did not pay a ransom.

Raja Naqqash Saeed told the Mail on Sunday newspaper how the gang holding his son Sahil had warned: "Do exactly as we say, or you will be receiving a little gift -- any part of his body."

When he tried to explain that he could not afford the amount they wanted, the gang said: "Look, you know how we came to your house in jackets packed with bullets and grenades?

"You know what we can do to him -- we can put a jacket around him with grenades and explosives and blow him to pieces. And we will deliver what's left of him to you in a bin bag on a roundabout."

Sahil was snatched at gunpoint from his grandmother's house in the town of Jhelum, about 100 kilometres (65 miles) south of Islamabad, in the early hours of March 4 at the end of a family holiday.

Pakistani and British officials launched a hunt for the boy and 12 days later Sahil was recovered safe and well in a field not far from Jhelum -- but only after the boy's uncle had paid a 110,000-pound (168,000-dollar) ransom.

That was largely recovered, however, in an international operation that resulted in five arrests in France and Spain.