Two seven-year-old boys were found dead in a house in Punjab’s Hafizabad several days after they were reported missing, according to a first information report (FIR).

According to a copy of the FIR — seen by Dawn.com and filed upon the complaint of the father of one of the victims — the complainant was heading for work at 7am on Wednesday morning when he learned that his son had gone missing.

“When I returned from work at 9 or 10pm, I could not find my son,” the complainant stated in the FIR. “We went to the house of a neighbour and found my son’s shoe there.”

According to the FIR, when asked about the missing boy, the neighbour said that his grandson had also gone missing. The complainant added that he and other residents searched for the children and performed announcements through mosques, to no avail.

On Thursday morning, the complainant was informed that the boys had been seen with three named and two unidentified suspects.

“We arrived at a house where the suspects were present. When we asked them to open the door, they scattered,” the complainant stated.

Upon entering the house, the complainant noted that there was a foul odour inside, and found the bodies of the two boys in a metal box. “Their bodies bore marks of violence,” the complainant stated.

The incident was reported to police, who registered the FIR under Sections 147 (rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 302 (punishment for murder) and 363 (kidnapping) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Meanwhile, the medical superintendent at District Headquarters Hospital Hafizabad, Dr Rizwan, told Dawn.com that the boys’ bodies bore signs of both physical violence and sexual abuse.

“The initial postmortem report showed clear signs of violence on the children’s bodies and evidence of abuse on their delicate organs,” Dr Rizwan said.

He also said that samples had been collected for forensic analysis and the full report detailing the cause of death would be submitted tomorrow.

According to the NGO Sahil, as many as 3,364 child abuse cases were reported from all four provinces, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) in the year 2024.

The report Cruel Numbers 2024 was prepared based on data collected from 81 national and regional newspapers across the country. It showed that nine children were abused per day during the year, while a gender-divide analysis indicated that out of the total reported cases, 1,791 (53 per cent) victims were girls and 1,573 (47pc) boys.