LAHORE, March 19: Thirteen-year-old Muhammad Munir, who is among the 10 children rescued from the clutches of racketeers who had taken refuge at a house in Kot Abdul Maalik on Tuesday, reveals that organised gangs first trap and then train children like him to do crimes like pick-pocketing and theft in the Punjab capital.Sobbing out his ordeal, he told Dawn: “I worked with my father at a chicken (meat) shop in Karachi. About a year ago my friends -- Robail, Shahab and Shamim -- introduced me to Muhammad Sohail (a racketeer) who offered us ‘lucrative’ job in Lahore. All four of us then left for Lahore along with him.

“On arrival, Sohail took us to a house where he detained us and made it crystal-clear to us that if we wanted to earn a fast buck, we would have to follow his instructions strictly.

He and his brother, Mubarak, then trained me and Shamim on how to go about pick-pocketing and commit thefts at shops while Robail and Shahab had been asked to provide us cover and support to get the job done.”

Munir said Sohail dropped four of them at certain points every day and he and Shamim managed to trap two to four preys and do a successful strike at a mobile shop a day. “We had tried twice or thrice to escape, but Sohail’s men deputed to monitor us foiled our attempts.”

He said Sohail was part of an organised network which trapped children and trained them for theft. Such children couldn’t get out of its clutches because the gang members kept an eye on them (children) at the places where they had to operate.

Munir and other nine children are staying at Edhi Homes in Gulberg and awaiting reunion with their families.

Fortunately for the children, Munir’s father Fazal came from Karachi in search of his son and after hectic efforts traced the whereabouts of his missing son. Fazal then informed the police who raided the house at Kot Abdul Maalik and recovered the children. They will be presented before a court on Thursday (today) to testify against the accused. Sohail and three of his accomplices had been arrested.

Nine children belong to slums in Karachi while one (Muhammad Rafiq) to Dera Ghazi Khan. Rafiq, who says he is a good cook, said he visited Data Darbar a month ago to pay homage to the saint where he met Sohail’s brother Mubarak “who took me to that house and offered me a salary of Rs5,000 for kitchen duty.

“I came to know about the real business of Sohail and company a week after assuming the job, but I decided not to utter a word to anyone fearing that I might land in trouble. Now I am very happy that the innocent children are rescued.”

Reports say racketeers are operating in a systematic way and the departments like the Child Protection Welfare Bureau, the Punjab Social Welfare Department and the Lahore Police will have to evolve a joint strategy to break past the network.

A source informs this reporter that the police and departments concerned have sufficient knowledge about the modus operandi of the racketeers and their areas of operation, but they find it hard to lay hands on such networks.