SHC questions police’s ability to investigate missing children’s cases

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday questioned the ability of the DIG-headed police investigation team dealing with missing children’s cases, directing the provincial and Karachi police chiefs to personally look into the matter.

Hearing a petition for the recovery of missing kids, the SHC’s division bench headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto said that the performance of the police team was quite unsatisfactory, as it did not bother to investigate the case of the missing child who was recovered after two years of captivity.

DIG Arif Hanif brought the kid, Mohammad Hasnain, to the court and said that the boy was recovered from the street. To the judge’s query about where he lived for two years, the child said he was abducted from outside his house and had been staying in a room.

Taking exception to the filing of a contradictory report by the DIG, the court asked him if he had interrogated the family members of the house where the kid had been living, to which the officer replied in the negative.

The judge said that according to the report, 18 children were still missing and the performance of the police investigation team headed by the DIG was quite unsatisfactory. He directed the DIG to take the child and his father to the place where the kid was kept in captivity.

The court also directed the DIG to record the statements of the family members of that house as well as to talk to the people of the locality so the police might be able to find a clue that could help them locate the remaining kids.

The judge expressed his dissatisfaction over the progress report and hoped that all-out efforts would be made by the DIG for finding the remaining children who had been missing for a long and whose cases had been registered at different police stations.

He directed the Sindh police chief as well as the city police chief to personally look into the matter and submit a compliance report in court by April 11.

The SHC directed the police to make all-out efforts, including the use of modern techniques, to ensure that the missing kids are recovered and to provide a progress report specifying every step taken to recover every child, including the location from where each of them had gone missing.

The Roshni Helpline Trust had moved the high court asking it to issue directives to the police that the missing children’s cases should be considered cognisable offences and investigations must be initiated without any delay.

The petitioner’s counsel had said that the whereabouts of 18 children were still unknown and requested the court to direct the police to recover them, adding that the cases of missing kids were not properly investigated, resulting in the loss of lives of many children.