LAHORE: The episode involving “kidnapping of a minor girl at the hands of a gang” had a drop scene when the nine-year-old’s parents came to know she was at the house of one of her friends in the same locality.

Keer Khurd village of South Cantonment area was gripped by tension, sparking public protest on Sunday after the news of nine-year-old Nimra going missing spread in the area.

Scores of locals took to streets raising slogans against police’s “failure” to check “kidnappings.”

Earlier, the girl’s father, Muhammad Ahmad, had told police Nimra had gone to a store in the street to buy shampoo but did not return home. He had claimed she was kidnapped while returning home.

Infuriated locals alleged that a “gang” was kidnapping children in different city areas but police were treating such incidents as just “missing children” cases.

Apparently buckling under protesters’ pressure and fearing reprimand by seniors, South Cantonment police promptly register a kidnap case against unidentified criminals on the complaint of Nimra’s father.

SHO Inspector Qamar Abbas had earlier said the CCTV footage revealed that the girl had purchased the shampoo from the store and went towards her home. The police cordoned off the area and launched a search operation to “recover” the minor girl.

However, the whole episode had ‘anti-climax’ when the parents came to know that the girl was at the house of one of her friends in the locality, from where she was brought back.

Later, she told a much relieved police that after being reprimanded by her mother, she sneaked out of her house and went to her friend’s without informing her parents.

Some area residents later said that they got panicked because of the recent media hype with regard to “rising” cases of children being kidnapped in the city.

According to police statistics, as many as 210 children “went missing” in various areas of the city in the first six months of 2016. Out of them 190 were later “recovered.”

A couple of days ago, Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Amin Wains had told a press conference that investigation results showed that most of the “missing” children had left their homes after they were admonished by their family members or teachers.

He said out of 208 children whose kidnapping cases were registered in different areas of the city, 162 returned home on their own.

He said police had recovered 27 children who too were not kidnapped but left their houses due to social and family problems.

The CCPO said some 19 children were still missing and police were contacting the Child Welfare and Protection Bureau (CWPB) district offices for their recovery.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2016