Families block National Highway over missing children

Action committee shuts Sindh-Punjab link, refuse to end sit-in until recoverey of children

HYDERABAD:

After waiting for more than three weeks for the recovery of abducted children, the Priya Kumari Action Committee on Friday escalated its protest by blocking the National Highway at Babarlo in Sukkur, bringing traffic between Sindh and Punjab to a standstill and piling pressure on the provincial government.

Babarlo is the same place that was blocked by lawyers in April 2025 during their protest against the construction of new canals on the Indus River, compelling the federal government to withdraw from the project.

"We won't end the protest until we are assured by credible people about the early recovery of the kidnapped children," said Sohni Paras, one of the leaders of the protest. "At least the police should recover four to five children before we halt the sit-in."

At the protest camp, banners display photographs of 17 children along with brief details of their names, ages and the circumstances of their kidnapping.

The participants include parents and siblings of the abducted children. The youngest among the missing children is Sonia Khoso, who was kidnapped from Kotri, Jamshoro district, on May 17, 2025, at the age of three. Majid Ali Lashari and Asifa Mughal were 16 years old when they were abducted from Larkana and Khairpur in November 2025 and February 2026, respectively.

Taj Rind, a journalist and activist at the protest camp, claimed that police have not even registered FIRs in the cases of eight of the missing children.

The protest has been named after Priya Kumari, who was abducted from Sukkur on August 19, 2021, when she was only seven years old. However, her parents, who have protested for years for the recovery of their daughter, are not participating in the sit-in. Paras alleged that the provincial government had threatened the couple.

The blockade of both sides of the National Highway began at around 7pm on Friday, three hours after the 4pm deadline given to the government for the recovery of the children. The SSPs of Sukkur and Khairpur districts reached out to the protesters, who refused to call off the sit-in.

Activist Sindhu Nawaz Ghangro said they had waited for 22 consecutive days for an adequate response from the government, but to no avail. "But now that we have blocked the road connecting Punjab with the port city, the government has partly woken up to the situation by forming a joint interrogation team," she said. "These committees are dramas that are often staged by the provincial government to smooth ruffled feathers of the protesters."

The sit-in ended with a three-day deadline to the police.

Meanwhile, protest camp along the highway will remain in place. SSP Sukkur Azhar Mughal assured that progress about investigation and recovery of the missing children will be shared daily with the protesters. According to him, they have been given names of 23 abducted children.