Lahore ‘missing’ girls moved to child protection bureau: police
DIG says they were taken to Sahiwal for human trafficking
Photo: Lahore DIG/Twitter
The four missing young women who were found from Sahiwal on Wednesday have been brought back to Lahore, Investigation DIG Shariq Jamal said Thursday.
“The young women were presented in court today,” he said in a media briefing. “They have been sent to the Punjab Child Protection Bureau after they refused to go back home.”
The court will decide whether the young women will be handed back to their parents or moved to a shelter home tomorrow (Friday). According to the law, we can’t force them to go back home if they don’t want to, the DIG said.
Their medical examination has been conducted to determine if they were physically or sexually assaulted or not.
According to the FIR, earlier this week, four girls, between the ages 8, 10, 11, and 14, left their houses for a Metro train ride and did not return.
The police said on Wednesday that one of the girls was carrying a mobile phone with her. They traced the cellphone to a location in Sahiwal and alerted the police there. When they reached the location, the girls were found with a man, identified as Qasim. He called himself their relative and was a rickshaw driver by profession.
“We traced their location using CCTV cameras and have visited the crime scene,” DIG Jamal revealed. “All the suspects involved in the case have been arrested and are being questioned.”
The DIG claimed that the girls were taken to Sahiwal for human trafficking. “The suspect sold one of them for Rs100,000.”
The police are going through Qasim’s criminal record. “We found out that his wife recently travelled to Dubai multiple times. The police are trying to ascertain the purpose of those visits,” the policeman added.
