The National Cybercrime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) on Saturday arrested three people suspected of gang-raping and blackmailing a minor in Abbottabad, according to a police official.

Haripur Sub-Inspector (SI) Basit Ashraf said in a statement that the suspects were part of a gang who allegedly raped a minor boy at gunpoint and filmed the assault, using the footage as blackmail.

“The NCCIA carried out an operation in Abbottabad,” he was quoted as saying. “The NCCIA registered a case against nine suspects … they assaulted the victim multiple times and blackmailed him and his family with the videos.”

SI Ashraf said that the suspects allegedly shared the videos on WhatsApp and used them to blackmail the victim’s family.

“Mobile phones and pornographic videos were recovered from the suspects during the raids,” he stated, adding that they would be used as evidence.

In July, Haripur police arrested a seminary teacher for allegedly sexually abusing a visually-impaired five-year-old child in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Haripur area, police said.

A first information report (FIR) was filed by the victim’s uncle at Saddar police station on July 10 under Section 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code (rape) and Section 53 (sexual abuse) of the KP Child Protection Act (CPA).

As many as 3,364 child abuse cases were reported from all four provinces, the Islamabad Capital Territory, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan 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.

“The objective of the report is to present the data on the situation regarding violence against children (up to 18 years) in cases of sexual abuse, abduction/kidnapping, missing children, and child marriages,” the report stated.