Police rescue 26 children, including 14 reported kidnapped

Spokesperson reiterates that most of these children left homes over parents’ negligence

LAHORE: As many as 14 children gone missing from their homes have been rescued from across the city in last four days.

Kidnapping FIRs had been registered by parents of these children at various police stations of the city.

Another 12 children were recovered in a city-wide search operation involving raids at 47 hotels, 10 inns, 120 commission agents’ shops, six seminaries, nine factories and 12 workshops. They were shifted to an Edhi Home in Gulberg.

Of the 14 children rescued from July 28-31, two were found by traffic wardens in Shahdara and Lower Mall areas on July 31. One of them was found standing handcuffed at Shahdara Chowk. He was taken to Shahdara police who said they were tracking down his parents.

The other was found from Lower Mall area. Police said they were tracking down his parents.

On July 30, a child was rescued and returned to his parents. He told the Shera Kot police that he had run away from his home fearing punishment over his failure to pass matriculation examinations. He was recovered from a friends’ house in Nawankot.

A child who had gone missing in Factory Area was recovered from near PEL factory. Police handed him over to his parents. A child was rescued from Janipura, a few hours after he had gone missing in Baghbanpura area.

In one of the instances, police investigation revealed that father of a six-year-old child had registered a false FIR about his child’s kidnapping. Police said the complainant had registered the case to wrongly implicate a rival group. They said an FIR had been registered against him for misleading the police.

Several incidents have been reported recently suggesting that citizens are taking extra precautions with children in public spaces.

In Shadbagh, a man was beaten up by citizens and handed over to the police for allegedly trying to kidnap a child. However, he was let go after he told the police that he was asking the child for directions.

Similar incidents were reported from Saeed Park Shahdara, Factory Area and Ghaziabad. Muhammad Kashif, a resident of Factory Area, told The Express Tribune that residents of the area had recently held a meeting to discuss ways to keep an eye out for kidnappers on their own, without relying on the police.

On July 30, the driver of an Edhi van carrying 12 children rescued in city-wide operation was stopped by a traffic warden near GPO Chowk. The warden mistook him as a kidnapper and called Dolphin Squad officials to the scene. The driver said he was held at Old Anarkali police till the Data Darbar SHO confirmed to the police officials at Old Anarkali that he was transporting children to the Edhi home with their consent.

In several cases police have yet to make significant progress in investigations. They have yet to track down those involved in the killing of Muhammad Umair, 10. His body had been found dumped in a drain Badami Bagh last week. There has been no progress in the cases of three other children missing from their homes in Badami Bagh; of a Sanda resident who fled captivity of his captors and took protection at a Rescue 1122 station; of a child rescued from an abandoned rickshaw in Shahdara Chowk. Officials concerned said investigations were underway.

Speaking to the media, Operations DIG Dr Haider Ashraf had said that 90 per cent of the children gone missing had left their homes on their own over parents behaviour.

City police spokesperson Syed Nayab Haider also dispelled as baseless the impression that a kidnapping gang was involved in most of these cases. She said they had found no patterns suggesting that the children gone missing had been kidnapped a gang. “This is a social issue caused by parents’ negligence to take good care of their children,” she said.

In a written reply to the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s suo motu notice, Additional IG Arif Nawaz and CCPO Amin Wains had said that 765 children had been reported missing from their homes across the province this year. They said 715 of these children had returned home on their own or recovered by police teams.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2016.