1,271 children reported missing since 2021, high court told

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday directed the police to continue making efforts for the recovery of 12 children who had gone missing from different parts of Karachi. The direction came on a non-governmental organisation’s (NGO) petition against the disappearance of children from different areas of the city.

The Criminal Investigation Agency (CIA) chief filed a progress report saying that relentless efforts are being made to trace and recover missing children, and all available resources and modern technologies are being employed for the purpose.

The court was informed that the NGO had shared with the police their data on the children who had disappeared from their houses during 2021 and 2022. According to the NGO’s data, said the CIA DIG, 1,271 children had been reported missing in 2021 and 2022, of which only 88 had been recovered, so the remaining 1,183 were yet to be found.

He said that according to the data provided by the NGO, the ages of most of the children who had gone missing from their homes were between 11 and 15 years, adding that on many occasions, FIRs of the missing children cases were not registered and investigated timely and properly.

He also said that brief biodata with pictures of the missing children were sent to child protection units across the province to crossmatch against the data on children being looked after under the units or against the official record maintained at their offices.

The officer said that during joint investigation team meetings, it was noticed that missing children cases came on record during 2017 and 2018, adding that it might be possible that a group was active at that time to kidnap children to use them in human trafficking or other illegal activities.

He said that perhaps they had been arrested by the police, adding that the Intelligence Bureau and the Federal Investigation Agency had been asked to verify the information, but the authorities concerned of both departments had not responded.

The investigating officer said that efforts are underway to find the remaining children, adding that as soon as a child is recovered or a clue is found, the information would be submitted in court and shared with their parents. Expressing satisfaction over the police report, the petitioner’s counsel asked that the petition be disposed of in those terms.

An SHC division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro said the issue of the disappearance of 36 children had been raised, of which 12 were yet to be found. After taking the CIA chief’s report on record, the court disposed of the petition, directing the police to continue their efforts to recover the remaining children.

The Roshni Helpline Trust had petitioned the court to issue directives to the police that the missing children’s cases be considered cognisable offences, and investigations into the cases be initiated without any delay.

The petitioner’s counsel had said that 12 children were still untraceable, and requested the court to direct the police to recover them. The petitioner said that missing children cases were not properly investigated, resulting in many children losing their lives.

The petitioner claimed that it had collected data on the missing children that showed that 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 their kidnappers.

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