‘Strategy formed to tackle kidnappings’

LAHORE

CCPO Thursday said 162 out of 208 children reported missing from Lahore in the past year had returned home themselves while 27 have been recovered by the police. 

Speaking to the media at Police Lines Qila Gujjar Singh, the CCPO addressed the recent disappearances in Badamibagh police jurisdiction, saying a strategy had been formed to tackle the supposed kidnappings and data collection regarding missing children had been concluded. Sharing the data with the media, the CCPO said 208 cases of missing children had been reported and that out of these 162 had found their way back home on their own while police had recovered 27 missing children, leaving 19 cases unsolved. The CCPO elaborated, saying that minors disappearing was a social issue, the root cause of which was often domestic problems. He then said police register FIR without delay when a child is reported missing and looked into every possibility, however, most of the children leave on their own accord. “Whenever such a report is filed we consider all potential causes including abduction for ransom, sexual abuse, bonded labour and for the purposes of beggary,” he said. The CCPO said that there were very few of the cases involved criminality, and that these disappearances often resulted in widespread panic in the city. He said 27 children recovered by police, many were found at a relative’s house and that many others had been recovered by the Child Protection Bureau.

Bringing some of the returned children onto stage, the CCPO presented them as an example of cases that were often blown out of proportion. In response to a question on what police were doing regarding the children that are still missing, the CCPO said a special team had been formed and that his office was coordinating with the Child Protection Bureau. “Lahore Police is doing its own designated duty and is even willing to take on this extra burden which is a social issue,” he said.