More than 500 cases pertaining to alleged abduction of girls are still pending in Punjab, with Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice (CJ) Aalia Neelum questioning the police over the backlog and seeking a detailed report from the provincial police chief.
According to reports, the concern surfaced during the hearing of a case involving a 16-year-old girl who had been missing for two years. She was recovered after the high court took notice of the case, and was later presented before the court over which the matter was disposed of.
During the proceedings, CJ Neelum asked Inspector General of Police (IGP) Rao Abdul Kareem if the girl brought before the court was the same person whose picture was included in the court record. The IGP confirmed her identity.
The CJ then questioned why hundreds of cases remained unresolved despite committees having been established to handle cases concerning women and children.
“If committees had been formed, why is the situation still like this?” the court asked.
The court also raised concerns about how police deal with cases involving women, pointing to a mindset within the department towards girls who become part of such cases.
“This mindset needs to change,” the court observed.
Punjab Police data reported on a private media outlet showed that 105,577 female abduction cases were registered across the province from 2021 to 2025. The data also showed that 3,256 women had been reported missing by April 20, 2026.
IGP Rao Abdul Kareem told the media that police would reassess cases involving women and children, focusing on how investigations were conducted, their outcomes and whether proper follow-up had taken place.
He said that approximately 3,200 such cases had been registered up to January 2025, while 500 cases dating from January 1, 2021, were still awaiting resolution.
Former Inspector General of Police Islamabad Tariq Alam said during a programme that missing women cases can involve different circumstances. He added police sometimes find that girls leave their homes willingly with a friend before eventually getting married.
Referring to the Punjab Police figures discussed during the programme, Alam said that 80 percent of the girls had been recovered and another 15 percent had gone back to their parents themselves.
He added that some girls may leave home because they expect their parents to oppose their choice of marriage or because the families involved differ in caste or financial status.
Asked whether such circumstances meant that a crime was not being committed, Alam acknowledged that female abduction cases do not always receive the same level of attention from police as other serious offences.
He also said that investigators could initially determine whether a girl left by choice or was taken against her will by examining the circumstances and checking mobile data records.
He stressed that police should treat every report involving a missing girl as serious.
“But this attitude of the police I’m not praising it, it is wrong. They should immediately conduct their investigation instead of wasting time on paperwork and the search should begin right away,” he said.
“The initial hours in an investigation hold immense importance,” Alam said, adding that Punjab Police has a digital system through which FIRs [First Information Report] are entered and senior officers can follow the progress of cases.
However, he added, that cases involving missing women are not organised and classified in the database in the same manner as other crimes.
Alam also said that police databases from different provinces are not connected with each other.
He said that missing girls can broadly be placed into three or four categories, including minors, those taken against their will and those who leave voluntarily.
