Three-year-old girl goes missing in Lahore

LAHORE: A three-year-old girl went missing on Monday from Lahore?s Anarkali area.

The girl identified as Janat Hayat had gone shopping with her father, police said.

Initially, an argument took place between two SHOs over the registration of the case in the concerned police station. The issue was resolved when the SP arrived and a case was registered in Old Anar Kali police station, upon the father?s request.

Meanwhile, two children who went missing on Sunday evening from Lahore?s Samanabad and Gulberg areas were found today. Police found the children during patrol in Lahore's Defence area and they were later handed over to the parents.

Earlier, a 10-year-old girl who went missing in May was found from Sindh?s Shikarpur area. The father of the girl had registered a case on May 25. Police said the girl is handicapped and her relatives had kept her in captivity. The relatives of the girl were beggars and had involved the kidnapped girl in begging too, police said.

The girl?s father is a beggar too and her mother reportedly sold her off for money.

A wave of anxiety has gripped the region following kidnapping of 600 children from Lahore and other parts of Punjab within a short span of time.

The Supreme Court is currently hearing a suo moto case of the rise incidents of kidnapping of children in Punjab.

Incidents of missing children from Punjab have been on the rise recently. More than a dozen children went missing from Badami baagh (garden) in the past few months alone.

The police, meanwhile, maintains that not all of the missing children were kidnapped. Additional Inspector General Police Shahzada Sultan, citing statistics, said that during 2015 kidnapping cases of 1,134 children were registered in Punjab, of whom 1,093 were recovered. This year 681 cases have been registered, whereas 640 children have been recovered already.

In the past six months, 312 children from Lahore alone and 652 children from all of Punjab have gone missing. According to official as well as unofficial reports, Lahore leads the list for the reported child kidnappings.