Missing girl sold for Rs2m and later got married, SHC told

KARACHI: A girl, who had been included in the missing children, has reached her house after three years. According to her, she was sold three years ago for Rs2 million and then married off to a man in Thatta.

This was disclosed before the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday during the hearing of a petition with regard to the recovery of children who had gone missing from different parts of the city.

Filing a progress report, Criminal Investigation Agency (CIA) DIG Arif Hanif submitted that a girl from the Korangi area, Munazza, who had been missing since July 24, 2016, has reached her home on October 27. He submitted that the girl has recorded her statement before a judicial magistrate regarding her three-year ordeal.

The officer told the SHC that the girl explained that on July 24, 2016 she left her home and went to meet her friend Hameeda but the friend told her to leave due to the fear of police and her mother. She added that she was later on taken away by a rickshaw driver to his sister’s house where they sold her to a man, Ali Nawaz, for Rs2 million.

The high court was informed that Nawaz brought the girl to Thatta where she was married off to Nawaz’s friend Gul Mohammad. She claimed that initially, she passed her life happily with her spouse in the village and they later shifted to Karachi.

Police submitted that the girl returned to her house after three years where she was informed that a case of her abduction had been registered at the Korangi police station. The officer submitted that in the light of the girl’s statement, all the suspects, including her spouse Gul Mohammad, rickshaw driver Mohammad Saleem, Saleem’s sister Reshma and Reshma’s spouse Allah Bux had been arrested and an investigation was being conducted as per the law.

The officer submitted that the final report of the case shall be submitted before the SHC on the next hearing.

The CIA DIG also filed a progress report with regard to efforts being taken to recover the remaining 15 missing children. A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha observed that the police shall continue efforts to trace the remaining 15 missing children and an advertisement for them be published and telecast in the print and electronic media so that the public may be able to come forward and provide some clue regarding the whereabouts of the missing children.

The petitioner, Roshni Helpline Trust, had moved the high court, asking it to issue directives to the police to consider the missing children’s cases as a cognisable offence and initiate investigations into such cases without any delay.

A counsel for the petitioner had submitted that the whereabouts of 16 children were still unknown. The counsel requested the SHC to direct the police to recover them. The petitioner said the cases of missing children were not properly investigated and as a result many such children might have lost their lives.