LAHORE: Dispelling the impression the government was not implementing the National Action Plan (NAP), Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Saturday 149 blacklisted terrorists and hardened criminals have been killed while 235 were arrested in Punjab.

He said the Punjab police, in collaboration with the other law enforcement agencies including Pakistan Rangers, conducted 190 operations while 808 operations were carried out alone by the police against terrorists, criminals and the banned organisations across the province. He said religious seminaries were also being regulated in the entire province.

Sana was replying to the queries of the media at the Chief Minister’s House here. He had arranged a meeting to brief the media on the recent incidents of children who were kidnapped or went missing.

Earlier, addressing the meeting, he said most children had left homes due to certain social and domestic factors and the recent reporting by the media on the issue had made this common phenomenon more complex and confusing.

While sharing a report prepared by the Punjab police on the child abduction cases, the law minister said over 40pc children had run away from their homes due to harsh behaviour of their parents. He claimed that no organised gang or network was behind the kidnap of the kids for removing their organs.

He claimed 6,093 children had gone missing or kidnapped during the last two years and of them only 139 were still missing while the rest of them had returned home either by themselves or recovered by the police. He said the Punjab government had increased coordination with the other departments concerned and the stakeholders to bring the ‘missing kids’ back to their homes.

Mr Sanaullah further said the chief minister had constituted a taskforce to effectively address the issue in the larger interests of the parents.

He urged the media to play a positive role by creating maximum awareness on the real factors behind this phenomenon in order to reunite all missing kids to the families.

Punjab Home Secretary retired Maj Azam Suleman, Additional Inspector General Police Arif Mushtaq, Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Amin Wains and Punjab Child Welfare and Protection Bureau Chairperson Saba Sadiq were also present.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2016