Staff Reporter
The police on Wednesday located the four girls who had gone missing a few days ago from Hanjerwal area of the provincial metropolis.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Sahiwal DPO Kashif Aslam claimed that the four missing girls had been kidnapped and had not gone on their own.
He said the girls including Kinza, Anam, Ayesha and Samreen have been recovered today from a home near Pakpattan Chowk in Sahiwal.
“Qasim, the rickshaw driver, had kidnapped them from Lahore and brought them to Sahiwal where he had kept them in a house. The girls had left their homes after getting annoyed with their parents. They boarded Orange Line Train and got off the train at Gulshan-i-Ravi station.
There, they made a telephone call to their neighbour Umar, who insisted that they must go back to their homes. But when they refused, Umar left them there and headed for home,” the DPO explained.
He further said the girls then kept going from one place to another within the city before they met Qasim, the rickshaw driver, who lured them away and took them to his friend Shahzad’s home. “Next day both Shahzad and Qasim took the girls to Sahiwal where they sold them to a prostitutes’ den,” DPO Aslam disclosed.
“It has emerged that Qasim, who is a resident of Sahiwal and works in Lahore, has connections with criminals,” the DPO said, and added: “Besides Qasim, police also arrested his accomplices Shahzad Naeem, Asif, Shaukat Ali, Shazia and Zeenat Bibi.”
He further said that so far police had not found any bruise or mark of torture on the girls’ bodies that could suggest they were either tortured or were sexually assaulted.
He told the media that the girls had refused to go to their homes.
Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar had issued directives to the Punjab Police to recover the missing girls and had sought a report from the Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Lahore in this regard.
In a separate case, the Lahore police found four girls who had fled hteir houses in Arifwala. According to a statement issued by the Capital City Police Office, a case of their disappearance was registered in Arifwala.
The police quoted the girls as saying that they had fled from their homes because they feared their uncle. The girls will be safely sent to their families, CCPO Ghulam Mahmood Dogar said.
