Two abducted girls reunited with parents

Karachi

Two minor girls, one 12 years old and the other six years old, were reunited with their parents, courtesy Madadgar National Helpline (1098), Advocate Zia Ahmed Awan, the founder of the helpline, said at a press conference on Monday.

The girls’ parents were also present at the press conference and shared their version with the media.

These girls were tkane to Dera Murad Jamali in Balochistan by Shafi Muhammad, s/o Noor Muhammad, of Lasi Goth, New Karachi, and Inayat, s/o Mir Gul of Moosa Colony, Karachi.

According to Awan, police had demonstrated their characteristic delays. He said that even though Madadgar played a major role in the recovery of the two children by providing legal aid, counseling, and active regular coordination with the requisite institutions, including the police, the courts, Edhi Centres, and the Federal Ombudsman/National Commissioner’s office for children, still it was a collective effort by all stakeholders involved.

“We received positive responses from everyone that we reached out for support.”

However, he was somewhat skeptical about the absence of inter-provincial procedures and said that this was the main reason why a large number of trafficked children could not be recovered.

He also raised questions about the efficacy of the police which, he said, was not very positive till the phone call from the Nawabeen of Jhal Magsi.

So he counter-posed the question, “How come that the police become so active after a phone call while their departmental systems are so slow that an inter-provincial recovery request to the home department takes such a long time even when the whereabouts of the victims are known?”

He said that the Nawabeen of Jhal Magsi took interest in the case because these children were there. What, he said, needs to be investigated is as to why these girls were there.

He also highlighted the fact that police got no funding for recovering a victim from another province which motivated them to resorting to bribes in the name of travel expenses.

He said police were also reported to have taken money from the father of one of the girls, a very poor fisherman.

He said that the recovery was made possible by the unflinching cooperation of all stakeholders in Balochistan and Sindh, mainly Madadgar Helpline 1098, the National Commissioner for Children, the Sindh Protection Authority and the social welfare department minister.

In brief, Muhammad Shafi kidnapped these girls from their neighborhood by feeding them drugged sweets.

For some time, he kept them in captivity in Karachi but they escaped. They were sent to the Edhi Centre where Shafi went and kidnapped them again, posing as their father.

Finally Shafi whisked them off to Dera Murad Jamali, Balochistan. He sold the girls for Rs300,000.

However, through a series of rigmaroles and pressure building on the father’s resolute determination to trace his daughter, the main culprit, Faros was apprehended. This, through a whole lot of steps, led to the arrest of the two culprits.