Helping hand: SHC wants media to help unite missing children

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday that  directed  the authorities to launch a media campaign to locate the parents of 16 children, who have been sheltered by the Punjab government’s social welfare department after they went missing from Karachi.

Headed by SHC Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar, the bench gave these directions while hearing a petition filed by NGO Roshni Research and Development Welfare against the police for not registering the cases relating to the missing children. The petitioner had claimed that around 5,000 to 6,000 children go missing every year. As many as 2,317 children have also gone missing from the jurisdictions of 106 police stations in Karachi during the year 2012 alone.

The petitioner alleged that the police usually record the complaints about missing children in their daily diary (Roznamcha) at the police station instead of lodging an FIR. “If a missing child is not rescued within 48 hours, then the police should register a kidnapping case and investigate the matter according to the law,” argued the group’s lawyer, Naveed Ahmed Khan.

Previously, the bench had called reports from the DIGs of Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Larkana and Sukkur to submit their reports on the number of FIRs on missing children lodged in their respective areas.

On Wednesday, the assistant advocate-general, Adnan Karim Memon, filed a report stating that 16 missing children have been sheltered by the Punjab social welfare department. The two-judges were irked that no efforts were made by the relevant authorities to locate the parents of these children so that they could be reunited.

The bench directed the provincial government to launch a campaign in the media, both print and electronic, so that the parents of these children can be located and they can be reunited.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2014.