LAHORE: A minor boy who was allegedly kidnapped by an unknown woman from the Lahore General Hospital (LGH), was left by her at Data Darbar, and was returned to his family.

A police official says that last Sunday night a man, Mohammad Iqbal, a resident of Pakpattan district, was brought to the hospital’s emergency ward for treatment. He was accompanied by his wife Uzma and their two-year-old grandson Ahmad.

Outside the ward, Uzma handed over her minor grandson to two women attending another patient, and went inside the Ward No 3, where her husband was under treatment.

When she came back, she was told by the two women that a burqa-clad woman, introducing herself as a relative of Uzma, took away the minor.

Uzma kept looking for the burqa-clad woman and her grandson and after failing to find them raised hue and cry, attracting the attention of the doctors and other staff of the hospital.

The hospital administration immediately called the police, which launched an investigation into the kidnap of the minor boy after registering a case against the unidentified kidnapper on the complaint of the patient, Iqbal.

The footage captured by the CCTV cameras also detected the burqa-clad woman leaving the hospital along with the minor.

The police official says that on Monday the investigators got information that an unknown woman had left the minor boy on Data Darbar’s premises and disappeared.

The police rushed to the spot and found out that the shrine’s administration had already handed over the minor to the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau.

The police then visited the bureau office, took custody of the child and handed him over to his grandparents.

Published in Dawn, Aug 1st, 2023