Police recover three children ‘sold’ for Rs0.14m

Teenaged child maid reported missing by mother in federal capital


Saleh Mughal January 17, 2019
PHOTO: FILE

RAWALPINDI/ ISLAMABAD: The Rawalpindi police have recovered three young children who were allegedly sold for just Rs140,000. A court subsequently directed to house them in a shelter home as it issued summons to produce their real guardians.

The police, though, has yet to recover the fourth child of the same family.

According to the police, Manzoor had filed an application in the court of an additional district and sessions judge in Lahore about the disappearance of his four grandchildren including 14-year-old R*, 10-year-old Q* seven-year-old M* and an unnamed fourth child.

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He claimed that two men in Rawalpindi, Farooq and Faisal, allegedly are holding these children.

SI Malik Aftab, who is the investigation officer of the case, told Daily Express that the police started investigating the two men after the application was filed.

Farooq, a trader, allegedly confessed to the police that he was in possession of the children and that he had been given the children by a woman named Zubaida after he paid her Rs140,000. He further stated that Zubaida was a close relative of Manzoor and was giving up the children because she could no longer take care of them.

Later, he brought the children to Rawalpindi.

Farooq said that he left the eldest child with his cousin Asim, the boy with his cousin Asad and the youngest girl with a man named Deputy Saleem. The police directed Farooq to bring the children to the police station. Later, the police presented them before the court.

When Manzoor could not satisfy the court about his guardianship, the children were sent to a shelter home and directed to present the real guardians of the children.

Asked about the fourth child Manzoor had claimed in his petition, Aftab said that per Faisal, Zubaida had offered him a fourth child but he had refused to take the child due to the young age.

The court has summoned Faisal again today.

Child missing

A 13-year child maid, working at a relative of senior bureaucrat has reportedly gone missing with the child’s mother suspecting that the girl has been murdered.

The child maid’s mother registered a case with the Khanna police that her teenaged daughter worked at a house in Margalla Town where the daughter of a civil officer, Sahabzada Nasir, lived.

She claimed that the family only let her meet with her daughter for a few hours after every six to seven months over the past three years. However, she claimed that in the past six months, she has not been able to reach her daughter either in person or on the telephone.

She suspected that her daughter had been killed by the civil officer and his son-in-law.

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Based on her complaint, the police registered a case January 2, but they have yet to arrest any of the suspects.

Ashiq Shah, the investigation officer in the case, told Express News that the civil officer was not in the city and had assured he will return in a few days.

When contacted, Nasir told Express News that he had paid Rs300,000 to the teenaged housemaid’s mother around three years ago and had kept her as a maid at his daughter’s home. However, he said that the girl had disappeared a few days ago on her own. He added that he will become a part of the investigation in a few days. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2019.

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