No headway in tracing missing woman, child

Complainant accuses police of filing misleading FIR

LAHORE:

Gujrat police have made no headway in tracing a woman who went missing on July 9 along with her eight-year-old son from her home in Sarai Alamgir under mysterious circumstances.

However, apparently to trivialise the matter, the police have applied a section of law that instead raises suspicions on the character of the missing woman, a practice that legal experts claim is common in such cases.

According to the details available with The Express Tribune, a woman, whose name has been withheld to protect her identity, went missing from her in-laws’ residence in Sarai Alamgir in Gujrat district on July 9 along with her eight-year-old son. The FIR of the incident was lodged on July 11.

86% cases involving missing, disappeared person resolved, claims Sindh govt

In the FIR, the brother of the woman suspected that her sister had been abducted by unidentified people for unknown reasons, but Sarai Alamgir police applied section 496A of PPC, instead of sections related to abduction. Section 496-A states, “Whoever takes or entices away any woman with intent that she may have illicit intercourse with any person, or conceals or detains with that intent any woman, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine".

The brother of the woman informed The Express Tribune that when the police agreed to register the FIR, they were given a written application by the police station’s Muharar in which it was alleged that his sister had fled with someone.

The complainant said that they were called by his sister’s mother-in-law and informed that the woman and her son were missing after she drugged the family.

Some relatives of the missing woman alleged that her brother-in-law Riaz Butt had attempted advances on her recently. They said that woman’s husband was in South Africa.

Raiz said he was in Lahore for business and had returned at 5am on July 9.

Sindh home dept claims 86% missing persons cases resolved, victims’ families tell a different story

SI Mehdi Khan, who had registered the FIR, conceded while talking to The Express Tribune that the SHO that told the applicant to change the content of his application. He said Investigating Officer ASI Qasim had been transferred to another police station on Wednesday. The official said progress in the investigation was likely after getting the phone call data of the missing woman.

A police officer in Lahore said the FIR did not take into consideration the fact that the minor had gone missing with the woman.

Several legal experts, including senior lawyer Hina Jillani, opined that it was a wrong but prevalent practice of the police of applying section 496A in such cases. Chairman Legal and Judicial Reforms Advisory Committee of Lahore High Court Bar Association Imran Javed Qazi said that with the section applied, police would adopt a conventional approach in solving the case, aloof of the fact that someone’s life might be in danger.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 18^th, 2020.