Sir: I don’t know how to explain my mental state when I saw the news that the rate of child kidnappings and their sexual abuse, especially in Punjab, has been increasing day by day, with over 3,100 boys and girls having become victims of these terrible crimes in the last five years. Most shocking is that these figures only represent 12 districts in Punjab alone.
Among the total 3,132 reported cases, 820 were related to kidnapping from which 493 were boys and 327 girls, 843 related to rape from which 683 were boys and 160 were girls, and the rest of the other cases involved other horrible deeds, like sodomy etc.
According to the data, among the 12 districts, Multan has the worst numbers in terms of reported incidents of such shameful crimes, with figure of 1,394 as a percentage of 44.5% in the last five years. According to the police, such cases were not reported due to pressures from society the parents had to face.
It is sad that our children are not safe in their own country Pakistan and it is my humble request that the Police must be active and solve such kind of cases at once, and should bring the culprits of these crimes to justice.
NADIA ASLAM
Turbat
Published in Daily Times, October 6th 2018.