A madressah teacher who allegedly molested a student in Muzaffargarh’s Bet Mir Hazar Khan area has been arrested, police said on Monday.

According to Muzaffargarh District Police Officer Dr Rizwan Ahmed Khan, the teacher in Jatoi tehsil allegedly raped the student and locked him in the madressah for five days to prevent him from reporting the assault.

“The teacher had invited his young student to his room under the pretext of a massage and raped him,” DPO Khan alleged. “A case was registered against the teacher and he was taken into custody.”

The Bet Mir Hazar Khan Station House Officer (SHO) said, “Such a brutal person will be punished severely according to the law and such people do not deserve any concession.”

In a separate incident, police have said that they will arrest a tailor’s son who allegedly raped an 11-year-old girl and blackmailed her with video footage of the assault six months ago.

The incident took place in the Riazabad area of Kot Sultan, where a girl had gone to learn sewing at a tailor’s house and was allegedly later raped by his son.

She alleged that the suspect found her alone at home and raped her, filming the assault. Threatening to share the footage and “make it viral”, the suspect allegedly continued raping the victim for the last six months.

The girl’s father said that when questioned, the victim spoke about the incident. A medical examination revealed that the girl was five months pregnant.

A case has been registered at Kot Sultan police station upon the complaint of the victim’s father.

SHO Haroon Raza Randhawa said that under the supervision of DPO Layyah Ali Waseem, a case was registered and teams were formed to apprehend the suspect, whom he said “would be arrested soon”.

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, according to a civil society report.

The report Cruel Numbers 2024 by Sahil 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.