TAXILA: The Bassal police claimed to have busted a gang involved in child pornography by arresting its three members.

“The gang adopted different tactics to lure schoolboys aged between 10 and 12 years into pornography,” investigation officer Manzar Ali Shah told this correspondent. He said the gang comprised four suspects, one of whom was yet to be nabbed.

“The police department started tracking the racket after a porn video of an 11-year-old boy came to surface,” said District Police Officer (DPO) Hassan Asad Alvi.

He said the police traced the culprits three days after taking notice of the video. A case has been registered against the suspects identified as Owais Ijaz alias Mufti, Haris Riaz and Ahsan Iqbal under different sections of the Pakistan Panel Code, the DPO added.

In reply to a question, he said the police were investigating if the gang had links with any national or international racket of child pornography. He said though the ring leader had been arrested, efforts were being made to trace the fourth member of the gang.

To another question, the DPO said the victim, a grade 6th student, was in distress and did not reveal the incident to his parents.

He said there was a need to create awareness among children to break social barriers and inform any such incident or attempt to their parents so that the culprits could be punished.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2018