Kidnapped and sold: Police recover 14-year-old girl during Ghotki raid

GHOTKI: Police officials have recovered a 14-year-old girl allegedly kidnapped for being sold by her maternal uncle during a raid conducted in Khanpur Mahar town of Ghotki, ARY News reported on Sunday.

Police said that the girl, Haleema, a resident of Chowk Bahadurpur area of Punjab’s Rahim Yar Khan city, was abducted before one week.

The accused person was also arrested in the police action, however, identification of the person has not yet disclosed.

Police detailed that the girl was kept as hostage by her uncle, who sold her to a Karachi resident Rahim Dad in Rs40,000. A case has been registered against the culprits in Iqbalabad police station against the heinous crime.

On January 13, Karachi Police had foiled an attempt by a man to kidnap a girl near Super Highway.

According to police, they got information from a citizen on helpline 15 that a man was manhandling and trying to abduct a girl near SITE, Super Highway.

Police reached the spot in time and caught the man who was forcing the girl into a rickshaw. The miscreant was reportedly intoxicated and was arrested by the police.

On December 4 last year, a raid conducted by Punjab police along with ARY News’ ‘Zimmedar Kaun’ team led to the arrest of including three women, from Sharifpura neighbourhood of Kasur district’s Pattoki city who allegedly bought minor girls for prostitution.

The raid, conducted on November 28 and shown in Zimmedar Kaun‘s December 2 episode, led to the arrest of three women and recovery of at least two girls named Laiban and Seerat.

The Zimmedar Kaun team along with police Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) officials first raided two dens, one owned by Zahida Perveen and other by one Manzooran Bibi on a tip-off that they bought two minor girls.

The suspects said that they bought the two girls, 12-year-old Laiba and three-year-old Seerat, from a midwife in Sharifpura.

When questioned, Zahida Parveen first said that the girl is her own daughter then said that she bought the girl to marry her off to her son but later accepted that she bought and raised her to eventually sell her for prostitution.

Later, the police also arrested the midwife who reportedly sold the girls to the suspects.

The midwife named Haleema had sold the three-year-old girl against Rs80,000 after taking her from a poor brick kiln worker on the pretext of giving her a good upbringing.

The other girl too belonged to a poor labourer family in a Deepalpur village who also handed her over to Haleema due to extreme poverty.

The Zimmedar Kaun team and police have requested people of the country to approach them as they are in process of raiding other such dens in search of minor girls who might have been kidnapped or whisked away after birth to be sold to such women.