CIA chief told to explain progress in finding missing kids

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday directed the Criminal Investigation Agency (CIA) chief, who heads the special team formed to find Karachi’s 20 reportedly missing children, to appear in court with a progress report and give details of the efforts made to solve the cases.

Hearing a petition for finding the missing children, the court directed the police to make all-out efforts, including the use of modern techniques, to ensure that the kids are recovered. The high court had earlier directed the Sindh police chief to form a committee headed by a DIG-level officer to solve the cases of missing children.

On behalf of CIA DIG Dr Mohammad Amin Yousufzai, the court received a progress report mentioning the details of the efforts being made for recovering the missing children. The report stated that hectic efforts are being made with all the available resources to find the missing children, and that the special team is closely monitoring the efforts of the investigating officers (IOs), guiding them to achieve positive results.

The court was told that advertisements about the missing kids have been published in different newspapers, while TV channels have also been approached for making announcements about the children. Eight women police stations have been re-designated as children and women police stations, with orders to the relevant SSPs to set up child protection desks in their respective districts to provide urgent response and find the missing kids, stated the report.

The SHC was told that instructions have been issued to all SHOs to register cases about missing children, while a child protection and response centre has been set up to focus on the missing kids’ cases and facilitate their parents.

IOs of Shershah, Sachal, Garden, Korangi Industrial Area and Gulshan-e-Iqbal police stations also filed their reports on their efforts to find Manzoor, Salman Subhan, Surgul, Mohammad Yousuf and Gul Sher.

The SHC division bench headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto directed the CIA chief to make all-out efforts to recover the missing children by using modern techniques, ordering him to appear in court on November 15.