SHC directs CIA DIG to submit progress report on 12 missing children

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday directed the Criminal Investigation Agency (CIA) DIG to submit a detailed progress report with regard to the recovery of 12 children who went missing from different parts of Karachi.

Hearing a petition of a non-government organisation (NGO) against the disappearance of children from different parts of the city, a division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro inquired the CIA DIG about the progress with regard to the recovery of the missing children.

CIA DIG Noman Siddiqui submitted a progress report before the court with regard to the whereabouts of the missing children, submitting that one child, Ayaz, who disappeared in the Quaidabad area, had fallen in a drain in 2018 and was taken away by a current of water and died.

He submitted that another missing girl, Asma, who disappeared in the North Nazimabad area in 2016, had left her house on her own and married a person of Bengali origin.

He informed the high court that steps were being taken for the recovery of the remaining 12 missing children through modern techniques. The bench observed that the12 children were still missing, and directed the police to take all the measures to recover the children as soon as possible.

The petitioner, Roshni Helpline Trust, had approached the high court for directives to the police that the missing children’s cases be considered as a cognisable offence and investigations for them be initiated without any delay.

A counsel for the petitioner had submitted that the whereabouts of 12 children were still untraceable and requested the high court to direct the police to recover them. The petitioner said the cases of the missing children were not properly investigated and as a result many children had lost their lives.

The petitioner claimed that it had collected data regarding the missing children, which showed that around 5,000 to 6,000 children went missing every year, but due to deliberate negligence on the part of the police, many children could not be traced and were left at the mercy of the kidnappers.

According to the petition, police used to register complaints in daily dairies of police stations instead of registering FIRs, and if proper FIRs had been registered and the matter investigated on time, many children could have been recovered and their lives saved.