PA told missing kids scare created by social media

Law minister says govt wants to monitor all roads leading to schools;to regulate all seminaries

LAHORE

The Punjab government told Punjab Assembly on Friday that only 139 children had been missing in the province over the last five years while the rest of the children whose missing reports were filed returned to their homes safely during this period. 

Entire scare about child kidnapping was spread by irresponsible elements on social media which amounted to cyber crime, said Punjab Law minister Rana Sanaullah while initiating the debate on law and order in the province with special reference to the missing children. He also debunked as baseless the propaganda that some gang of illegal kidney transplant trafficking was involved in children kidnapping, and said government investigations had revealed that entire story about such a gang was baseless. 

He said over the last five years, a total of 6,799 children were reported missing out of which, 6,661 returned homes safely while 139 remained missing so far. However, the social media baseless propaganda had earned bad name to the country in the world as even overseas Pakistanis refrained from visiting the country due to that baseless fear.  The law minister said the government was undertaking National Action Plan (NAP) by taking all political parties on board, adding the government intended to regulate all seminaries in the province to ensure that they were not involved in any kind of extremism or terrorism. He said particulars of all teachers and students of seminaries would be obtained for the purpose besides other necessary particulars. He told the House the government wanted to monitor all roads leading to the schools to ensure safety for the children. 

Regarding other measures for ensuring law and order, the minister told the House that police and Rangers had conducted 61,228 operations in the province against terrorists while 9,689 combing operations were also conducted which resulted in arrests of 1,109 suspected of which 143 were proclaimed offenders. He said the sole aim of the terrorists was to create chaos in the country to hinder the process of development and weaken its foundations.

He lauded the security forces for foiling the terrorists attempt at a Christian colony near Peshawar a few hours ago but expressed grief over loss of precious lives in another attack in Mardan after a few minutes. 

The Leader of the Opposition Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed said missing of 139 children according to government’s own figures was an utter failure of the government and its law enforcing agencies. He lashed out at the government for completely failing on its promises of changing thana culture and providing relief to the victims of crimes. Terming non-registration of FIRs the biggest hurdle in the process of justice, he asked why the government had been refraining from enforcing online registration of FIR system in the province. He asked the law minister as to why none of the criminals arrested so far for kidnapping children was punished, adding that it reflected utter failure of the government. He also criticised the government for slow implementation of NAP and said had the government not been slow on NAP there would have been no need to set up monitoring committee headed by Gen Janjua. 

MPA Faiza Malik and Rana Arshad also participated in the debate during which government brought a resolution condemning the terror attack in Mardan.

The resolution praised the security forces for foiling the attack on Christian colony in Peshawar, holding that the aim of the attack was to bring bad name to Pakistan, and prayed for those martyred in the attack. The House also offered Fateha for the departed souls.  Minister Khalil Tahir Sindhu who hails from Christian minority stated before the House that no
amount of such cowardly attacks would damage the spirit of minorities in the country .