The Mandi Bahauddin police on Monday said two people were arrested as they busted a suspected gang of child predators who allegedly molested children and filmed the assaults.

District Police Officer (DPO) Ahmad Mohiuddin told Dawn.com that the action was taken after he took notice of four cases registered at the Civil Lines police station from September 24-29 under Sections 375A (gang rape), 376iii (punishment for rape of a minor) and 511 (attempting to commit offences punishable by life imprisonment) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

DPO Mohiuddin said he immediately took notice and ordered the district superintendent of police (DSP) to arrest the suspects and submit an incident report at the earliest, after which two suspects were arrested from the areas of Makhanwala and Tariqabad with raid teams seizing a mobile phone, a laptop and a USB drive.

He added that one suspect secured interim bail and that a fourth suspect was on the run.

“Police teams are currently searching for him,” the DPO said. “We are hoping to find him by tonight.”.

Mandi Bahauddin Police Spokesperson Ajmal Waheed Gul told Dawn.com that the arrested suspects allegedly lured the children to a shop where the gang molested them.

“They filmed the assaults on their phones and used the videos as blackmail,” he added.

“These are operatives of the same gang,” the DPO said, adding that a medical examination of the victims was being performed.

DPO Mohiuddin added that the victims ranged in age between 8 and 13. He said that some of them refused to come forward “due to social stigma”.

Previously, more than 40 separate cases of abduction and sexual violence against women were reported in Mandi Bahauddin district in July.

According to 46 first information reports (FIRs), seen by Dawn.com, the incidents occurred from July 1 to July 24.

The various cases were registered under PPC Sections 376 (rape), 376iii (rape of a minor), 365B (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel for marriage etc.), 496-A (enticing or taking away or detaining with criminal intent a woman), 114 (abettor present when offence is committed) and/or 511 (punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or a shorter term).

The FIRs revealed details regarding abduction, sexual assault, and physical abuse of young girls and adolescents by various means and pretexts.

The ages of the affected women and adolescents ranged from 10 to 28 years with the majority being underage girls between the ages of 10 and 18.

Earlier this year, data compiled by Sahil, an NGO working for children’s rights, showed that 11 children were abused every day in 2023, with mostly acquaintances and relatives involved in the heinous act.

The report said that in 2023, a total number of 4,213 child abuse cases had been reported from all four provinces as well as the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). The total number of cases included reported cases of child sexual abuse, cases of abduction, cases of missing children, and child marriages.

A gender-divide analysis of the data showed that out of the total reported cases, 2,251 (53 per cent) of victims were girls and 1,962 (47 per cent) were boys. The reported age showed that children were most vulnerable to abuse in the age group of 6-15 years, in which more cases of boys than girls were reported.

Moreover, children as young as 0-5 years were also sexually abused. The abuser’s category in the report indicated that acquaintances were still the most involved in child sexual abuse, along with relatives, family members, strangers and women abettors.

The report also showed that out of the total 4,213 reported cases, 75pc were reported from Punjab, 13pc cases from Sindh, 7pc cases from Islamabad capital territory, 3pc cases from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and 2pc cases from Balochistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB).