LAHORE: The data on the crimes committed against children in Punjab puts a big question mark on the performance of police in the largest province of the country.

Official sources in the Central Police Office (CPO) said over 750 cases were registered against suspects in 2017 for committing crimes against children, including girls and boys, mostly aged between 3 and 15 years.

Most of such crimes were reported in Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Kasur and Rawalpindi.

The sources said the fresh figures surfaced when the Punjab investigation branch high-ups on Thursday collected record of the cases of crimes committed against children across the province in the wake of the Kasur’s tragic incident.

A police source said that prior to the incident, the Punjab police high-ups had no comprehensive data on the cases involving crimes against the children.

However, during initial analysis, they found out that the crimes against children across the province registered 30 percent surge in 2017 as compare to 2016.

Most of such cases reported across the province pertained to kidnap of the children for sexual assault or forced labour, the source said.

The source further said that during scrutiny of the available official record, the officers could find only one report that contained data on the children kidnapped in Punjab.

According to the report, the source said, total 6,793 children were kidnapped from various cities of the province during the last six years.

The police high-ups claimed that the most of the cases of children’s abduction had been resolved.

They also collected the cases involving kidnap of adults, including women and young men.

The data in this regard showed that total 12,736 kidnap cases were registered across the province in 2017 as compare to 12,526 in 2016.

The source said the senior police officers decided to convene meetings on daily basis to collect more details on crime against children to present a report to the inspector general of Punjab police.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2018