SIALKOT
Police on Tuesday claimed to have busted a well-organised inter-district gang of nomads dealing in children and making them beggars after abduction, and also recovered eight such kids from the nomads’ cottages during a raid.
The Sialkot Cantt police recovered the kids from nomads’ cottages located along several roads in Cantt areas. SP (Investigation) Sialkot Asad Sarfraz Khan told newsmen that on a tip off, the police raided the nomads’ cottages and recovered the children, who had been made beggars. These children were in very miserable condition, he said and added that three of the victims had been shifted to Govt Allama Iqbal Memorial DHQ Hospital Sialkot due to their critical mental and physical condition, as all the children were brutally tortured by the nomads for less-begging as per their daily routine.
The children have lost their recognition, as they had been given nick names against their original names. The SP added that the police had also arrested 27 nomads including 14 females directly or indirectly involved in the illegal practice.
The accused were produced before the newsmen who confessed that they used to kidnap children from Sialkot, Daska, Pasrur, Shakargarh, Narowal, Wazirabad, Gujrat, Hafizabad, Mandi Bahauddin, Gujranwala, Lahore and surrounding areas and later forced them for begging after forcibly damaging their different body parts. A special task of begging-income was daily given to these children under the supervision of their special monitors. These children were used to beg in different residential, commercial, industrial and posh of Sialkot city and Sialkot Cantt as well, they added.
The accused maintained that the nasty practice was being done by them since long. They used to keep these baggers at their cottages and other urban and surrounding areas of Sialkot city. The children were also often tortured badly there for less-begging. The children were also not in good health due to food paucity, as they were also mostly kept hungry or given less foods.
The accused also confessed to sell and buy children in other parts of the Punjab. The recovered children would soon be handed over to Child Protection Bureau Sialkot, which would make contacts to locate the families of these children, SP added.
ROBBERS UNTRACED YET: Daska police remained clueless and remained failed in tracing out and arresting accused in Monday’s Rs2.5 million dacoity incident occurred in Daska city.
Two armed motorcyclists snatched Rs2.5 million in cash at gunpoint from village Bhoonaanwali-Daska based trader Abdul Ghafar and his cousin Zakariya. They were going back to village after drawing Rs2.5 million from Al-Falah Bank Daska in their double cabin vehicle near BRB Daska Canal bridge when the incident took place. The accused fled away with booty by firing in the air.