LAHORE, July 9: The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid has submitted a motion with the Punjab Assembly Secretariat, citing a chart presented in the National Assembly in which the crime rate in the province has been shown higher than that of other provinces.

PML-Q parliamentary leader Chaudhry Zaheer, while submitting the motion, sought a general debate on alarming increase in cases of kidnap and torture of women in Punjab.

Citing figures from a chart about crime situation across the country in 2011, recently presented to the National Assembly’s standing committee on human rights, he said Punjab was ahead of other provinces as far as cases of murder, robbery, kidnap and crimes against women were concerned.

Alleging failure on the part of the PML-N government in maintaining law and order in the province, he said the chart had been made a part of the adjournment motion.

Talking to newsmen, the Q leader said Deputy Prime Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi had been rightly criticising economic and administrative ‘mismanagement’ in Punjab for the last three years.

He said these facts showed the provincial affairs further declined and billions of rupees meant for maintaining law and order were lost because of “ineptness” of the PML-N government.

Mr Zaheer regretted that police officers instead of protecting lives and properties of people were exhausting their energies on saving postings and avoiding suspensions being ordered by ‘whimsical’ chief minister.

According to the crime chart, Punjab recorded 16 times more kidnap cases than other provinces (7,291 in Punjab, 259 in Sindh, 48 in KPK and 151 in Balochistan).

Similarly 2,605 cases of torture of women were registered in Punjab, while in Sindh the number of such cases was 79, in KPK 39 and in Balochistan 6.

Cases of gang rape and rape of women were 32 times more in Punjab than other provinces as 1,854 such cases were reported in Punjab, 22 in Sindh, only one in KPK and five in Balochistan.

At least there were 726 cases of torture of children in Punjab, 42 in Sindh, 31 in KPK and 21 in Balochistan, which meant such cases were nine times more in the province.

Interestingly, as far as missing persons cases were concerned, Punjab stood second with 32 such cases after Balochistan where the number of such cases was 109. The score in Sindh and KPK was three and six, respectively.