The recovery of a 15-year-old Sheikhupura girl from Sindh has unearthed a gang that has sold 500 young women by scamming and kidnapping them. Seven arrests have been made so far from Lahore and Jacobabad.
As per the police report, an abduction case was registered with the Factory Area Police Station in Sheikhupura on June 2 following the disappearance of a teenage girl. An investigation was initiated upon their failure to recover the girl, reported Dunya News on December 12.
Urdu News has reported the incident in greater detail, including listing the motives of the girl who eloped, and how she got recovered.
Alisha reached Lahore on the morning of June 2. She got out of the car near a petrol pump near Data Darbar in Lahore. She didn’t have her phone with her which she deliberately left at home, as she looked for someone in the crowd. Alisha got in touch with a man named Nadeem through Facebook. After being in contact online for a long time, she fell in love with him.
Nadeem promised Alisha that if she came to Lahore, they will marry each other.
On the morning of June 2, when her mother went to work, Alisha ran away from home to find her unknown love.
When Alisha did not find Nadeem in Lahore, she broke down. She reached the Data Darbar premises exhausted and sat in the courtyard. A woman came to her and comforted her and said that she would get her a job in a good place or get her married somewhere. Alisha had no choice but to believe this unknown woman and thus they became friends.
On the other hand, Alisha’s mother registered an FIR of her abduction in Sheikhupura Police Station Factory Area.
Sheikhupura Police Spokesperson Wajid Abbas told Urdu News that Alisha’s mother received a phone call telling her that her daughter was in Sindh and she had to pay a ransom of Rs 25 lakh to get her daughter back. Alisha’s mother filed a case of kidnapping on June 6.
Meanwhile, two local politicians in the area advised the woman to file a writ in the High Court, that her daughter was missing.
Wajid Abbas said that the court reprimanded the SHO of the local police station and said that if the girl is not recovered, he will be suspended.
He said that DPO Sheikhpura Zahid Marwat took a personal interest in the case and tried his best to solve the case. The police also found a trace of a gang.
Sheikhupura police reached Lahore in search of Alisha and started searching for her with the help of Safe City Authority cameras, when the police saw some people talking to Alisha in the Data Darbar area.
According to the police, after making inquiries about the wanted persons, they arrested one. When the police interrogated the man, he confessed to his gang kidnapping the girls.
On investigation, the police found that the main character of this gang is a woman named Latifan Bibi living in Karachi, while her husband Khan Muhammad is also involved in criminal activities.
The suspect told the police about the modus operandi of his gang. Latifan Bibi is in touch with six people from Karachi to Lahore. Three women and three men operate in Lahore, these six people approach different girls and convince them that they will get them married or get them a good job.
They then transfer all of them from Lahore to the rural areas of Sindh.
The spokesperson of Sheikhupura Police said, “When Alisha was seduced by an unknown woman in the Data Darbar area of Lahore, she informed Latifan Bibi in Karachi about it, after which the unknown woman sold Alisha to Latifan Bibi for 20,000. This group commits crimes systematically, two people from Lahore went to leave Alisha to Karachi.”
He said that Latifan Bibi gave these people 20,000 rupees for traveling expenses. The police soon came to know that these two men also raped fifteen-year-old Alisha on the way.
According to him, as long as Alisha stayed with Latifan, her husband Khan Muhammad also kept raping her. Then Latifan Bibi sold Alisha in the city of Qamber in Sindh for two lakh rupees, after which she was sold eight times in Sindh.
The police traced Alisha and had information about the alleged gang, but the police now had the task of catching the entire gang. The police prepared a plan to nab the accused.
According to the Sheikhupura Police Spokesperson, “We prepared one of our lady constables and told the arrested accused to call Latifan Bibi and tell her that they are bringing another girl to Sindh.” Latifan Bibi did not know anything about this.
“When our officials reached the Kacha area of Sindh with the accused and the lady constable, Latifan Bibi and later her husband were also arrested from there.”
Latifan Bibi and other suspects revealed disturbing details during the investigation.
Latifan Bibi told the police “So far they have abducted around 500 girls from Lahore and sold them in the Kacha area of Sindh and got a huge price for them.”
“Girls who come to courts or run away from home, we would trap them and kidnap them.”
According to the Sheikhupura police, this gang has remained safe from being caught by the police until now because whenever the police went to catch them or found a trace of a missing girl, Latifan Bibi would arrange the marriages of these girls, after which these girls would be found by the police. She used to state that she was married, due to which the police action could not be successful.
When the Sheikhupura police recovered Alisha on the identification of the arrested accused, there were many revelations.
According to Sheikhupura police, Latifan Bibi revealed that she sold Alisha at nine different places, but finally, police found Alisha from an area called Mehr on the border of Sindh and Balochistan and brought her to Punjab. She is now in police custody.
Sheikhupura Police Spokesperson Wajid Abbas further said that the police have detained eight accused in this case, including four men and their wives. Alisha and her mother also tried to change their statement, but now we have kept Alisha in safe custody so that this gang can be severely punished.
The police led by DPO Zahid Marwat produced Alisha in the court and informed her about the entire incident.
The court, while dealing with Alisha’s recovery request, issued an order that, “This matter should be investigated more deeply and all possible measures should be taken for the recovery of the kidnapped girls.”