SWAT: A spate of child kidnappings in Swat over the last few weeks has seen as many as 20 children disappear and the police are clueless.
“Nothing can be more painful for a parent than the disappearance of a child and knowing that your child is missing, alive and afraid,” said a tearful Bakht Ali, whose son, Yasin, has been missing for the last ten days.
“The atmosphere in our home is gloomy. Life has lost its colour, my wife becomes delirious when she recovers from fits of fainting. Yasin is our only son and a brother of 4 sisters,” he told The Express Tribune.
Four-year old Yasin is among 20 children who have been missing for 10 days now. Child kidnappings in Swat District have been on the rise despite security measures and day-night patrolling. The police have had no success in tracing them, much less recovering them.
“I was out of the country when my family went to attend a relative’s wedding in Mingora. Yasin was playing in the street with other children. When he did not return home, my family panicked and began frantically searching for him in the neighbourhood. When they realised he was gone, they called me and I took the next flight home,” continued Ali.
He appealed to ‘professional’ ransom kidnappers that if they had his child they should take pity on Yasin’s mother, whose entire world has fallen apart.
According to public records, only two of the 20 children lost or kidnapped in the last two months have returned, with the return of each child costing the respective families a king’s ransom.
Nasim Bibi of Chuprial Matta, the mother of a missing 14-year-old girl named Akhtar Bibi, told The Express Tribune, “My daughter went to buy some milk but did not return. I asked everyone to help me but nobody took me seriously. I am handling this on my own because her father is working in Punjab. Please help me find my baby,” pleaded the distraught mother.
Nadar Khan, a boy of 13, is also among the missing children. His father, Rahmatullah, related his last meeting with his son. “I sent my son to bring tea from a tea-vendor but he did not return. We searched everywhere in vain.”
“The kidnappers have found silent customers who cannot open their mouths because of security threats,” he said, adding that, “Nobody from the government or the political setup asked or offered help.”
When contacted, the families of the two recovered children refused to talk on the subject and requested that the media make no further contact.
However, District Police Officer Qazi Ghulam Farooq had a different story. “First of all, I must clarify that the children have not been kidnapped, but are missing,” he said.
“The main problem is that parents do not come to us to register a report and until they do, how will the police know a child is missing and begin investigating?” he asked.
“Though we have tightened security on the city’s entrance and exit points and checkpoints, the police will not be able to crack the case until people cooperate” he maintained.
The two children, Bilal and Abdullah, were recovered from Sakha Kot, an area notorious for the kidnapping “business”. Despite the claims of police officials, no action seems to have been taken against the kidnappers.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2011.
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