Stories about kidnappers gang termed scaremongering

Police dispel rumours circulating on social media

LAHORE:

No gang of kidnappers has landed in the provincial capital.

This was stated by the top brass of Lahore Police, dispelling the rumours circulating on social media

For the last few days, videos were making rounds on social media “warning” people of taking extra care of their children as “gangs from different parts of the country, especially from the flood-affected areas have come to settled areas like Lahore”.

These videos of social media created harassment and panic among the people. There have been several cases that show how panicky some people became after watching these videos.

In one instance, people caught some innocent people and beat them up on suspicion of their being child kidnappers.

In another incident, which was reported in the Factory Area of Lahore, two apparently innocent women were surrounded by some people at midnight assuming them to be child kidnappers and handed them over to police.

In yet another case, an old man was tortured in Burewala by some people who took him for a child kidnapper.

A similar case also came to light in Gujranwala.

This is not the first time people of the provincial metropolis have been subjected to such scaremongering. They have gone through such a phase before as well.

The people of Lahore went through such scaremongering in 2016. Then, too, the people had panicked and indulged in some very bizarre behaviour.

One such absurdity was exhibited when a woman who had been going somewhere with her son was caught and tortured on the assumption of being a kidnapper. The assumption was based on the grounds that her son’s complexion happened to be fairer than hers.

In a case a father was tortured because he had been forcing his son to go to school while the boy was rebelling against his father’s instructions.

A social media post in 2016 about a child having been dumped in a private housing society had been watched by millions of people.

A heavy contingent of police had searched every nook and cranny of the society and also sought the help of the people with whom they shared the post, but no such trace was made.

Lahore DIG (Investigations) Athar Ismail told a press conference at his office the other day that that no abnormal situation had arisen, and most of the news on social media was just rumours.

The DIG said that each year around 0.2 million FIRs were registered in Lahore, and a few of those were about abduction cases.

No unusual trend was observed this year. DIG Ismail said that in September this year, as many as 96 cases were registered as compared to the same month last year when 95 cases were registered.

Lahore CCPO Ghulam Mehmood Dogar, while talking to the media, said that children were not being kidnapped in an organized manner in Lahore. He said that he believed that children should be taken care of.

He said that he wanted to clarify that there was a difference between “going missing” and “kidnapping”.

A child could leave their home own their own over one reason or another and no element of force was involved in such cases whereas in a kidnapping case a child was abducted by use of force by a kidnapper.

He added that an overwhelming number of cases in Lahore related to the missing children who left their houses without telling their family in protest over one matter or another.

He added that children’s matter was a sensitive issue, and “we have asked police to register an FIR immediately even if a missing case was reported”.

He said that 733 cases were registered during the year, and police recovered 632 children in these cases. At least 100 cases were under investigations. Fifty-eight children out of 100 had returned, but their families did not bother to inform the police about their children’s return so that it could become a part of the record.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 6^th, 2022.