Prosecution might halt false kidnap cases: DIG

LAHORE: A senior police officer has urged men who are falsely accused of kidnapping to file cases against their accusers under Section 182 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

“I think that this is the right way to discourage the rising trend of false kidnapping cases,” Lahore DIG Operations Rao Sardar Ali told The Express Tribune on Saturday.

He said the number of kidnapping cases, particularly involving women, had risen this year over last year. But many of these cases were false, he said, meaning the alleged victim hadn’t actually been kidnapped, but run away from home with her lover. The parents of the girl, angry at being disobeyed, then filed a kidnapping case naming her lover as the suspect. The police are bound by law to register an FIR and investigate whenever an alleged crime is brought to their attention, he said.

Rao said that once a man charged with kidnapping is cleared by a court, he has the right to file a case under Section 182 against the complainant. Section 182 deals with “false information with intent to cause a public servant to use his lawful power to the injury of another person”.

Police officials say that two or three cases alleging kidnapping of women are registered every day in Lahore. Five women and a child were reported kidnapped on Saturday. Chuhng police registered a case on the complaint of a woman named Rani Bibi who accused her neighbour Allah Ditta and his wife of kidnapping her 16-year-old daughter, Tasneem. Kahna police station registered an FIR after a man named Shaukat reported that his 16-year-old daughter, Misbah, had been kidnapped by one Riaz and his accomplices.

Ichhra police station registered an FIR on the complaint of one Umer Zafar, who said his sister Farim Zafar, 17, had been kidnapped near her house. He didn’t name any accused.

Ichhra police also registered an FIR on the complaint of a man named Jamshed. He said his daughters Tania, 22, and Sana, 18, and grandson Atif, 6, were kidnapped by Sumaira Bibi, Asif alias Nadeem and Sadaqat alias Raji. He said the accused had taken them with them promising employment, but were now detaining them.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2010.