Two teams to track down child traders -DAWN

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July 17, 2002	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 6, 1423

Two teams to track down child traders

By Our Staff Correspondent

FAISALABAD, July 16: The district police have constituted two special teams for tracing the arrested gangsters’ accomplices involved in the trade of children and for the recovery of the victims which are said to be over 100.

Dawn learnt on Tuesday the police high-ups had dispatched two teams for arresting over two dozen groups operating in the province.

Accused Maqbool Ahmad, Ghulam Rasool and Abdul Ghaffar of Bahawalnagar were booked and arrested by the People’s Colony police on the charge of compelling children to labour and to commit frauds.

During interrogation, the accused claimed one Ghulam Murtaza, resident of Mianwali, was head of a gang of child lifters and patronizing a dozen groups of children in Faisalabad, Lahore and other cities.

They said Murtaza was notorious in rural areas of Mianwali for keeping minor children over petty ‘shares’ and compelling them to beg in the commercial and residential areas of big cities in the garb of selling booklets and cassettes.

The accused told the police that the poor residing in backward areas in Mianwali, Bahawalnagar, Bhakkar and Lodhran handed over their children to these parties, hoping for some remunerations and employments for their children.

However, they claimed they had been doing things legally as parents of kids had no objection to their offers. They said they had allocated various areas and they changed districts every three months according to schedule. The main areas of business were the congested localities in Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Multan and Rawalpindi, they said.

Meanwhile, Tariqabad police post in charge Rana Atif told Dawn that the police had registered a case under sections 374, 418 and 420 PPC. The accused would be produced before the court, he said.

He said the police had informed the parents of the recovered children that they could get their children back with the permission of the court. Otherwise, he said the police would send them to Darul Aman.