LAHORE, Nov 11: The railway police help centre has restored 77 runaway/lost children and eight women to their parents/guardians, found wandering at the Lahore Railway Station in the last four months.

The centre had been established at the station in June last with the financial help of a local pharmaceutical company.

An analysis of statistical data revealed that most of the children (30.64 per cent) had departed with their parents because of the latter’s carelessness while travelling through railway network.

Dropouts —- who fled their schools for not being interested in studies and those afraid of physical torture by teachers —- constituted 20.96 per cent and 9.67 per cent, respectively.

The percentage of children fed up with “bonded labour” at various houses was 12.90, while torture by parents had forced 11.29 per cent of the lot to flee their homes.

Of the eight women, three had left their homes because of domestic violence while five, who were teenaged, claimed that they wanted to marry boys of their own choice.

Railway police IG Malik Ahmad Nasim said the runaway/lost children were handed over to their guardians after confirming their identities.

The guardians, he said, had been advised to improve the conditions and attitude that had forced their near and dear ones to flee their homes.

Keeping in view the performance of the Lahore centre, such points were also being established at other big stations like Faisalabad, Multan and Karachi, he added.

According to the IG, the Lahore centre had been providing a variety of other services, besides restoring the runaway/lost children to their guardians. “It has provided wheel-chairs to 360 passengers, stretchers to 19 and first aid to 18 disabled/injured passengers,” the IG said, adding that 27 lost bags/purses were also handed over to their owners.

Mr Nasim said the railway police was also keeping an eye on pick-pockets, thugs, black-marketeers and ticketless passengers. It had booked 1,673 ticketless passengers and recovered a fine of Rs560,708 from them during a special campaign in the last one month, he said.