LAHORE: The Punjab Police on Thursday told the Supreme Court that 767 children were abducted from different parts of the province during the current year and 715 of them were recovered.

This was stated in a report submitted by Additional IGP Investigation Arif Nawaz Khan before a two-judge bench of the apex court during hearing of a suo motu case againstrisingincidents ofchild abductionin the province.

Senior puisne judge, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, had taken suo motu notice of the abductions a few days ago when he was acting chief justice of Pakistan.

The police report also carried statistics of the last six years, revealing that 6,793 children were abducted in the province and 6,654 were recovered. It said 2,072 children were kidnapped from various cities ofPunjab in 2011 and out of them, 1,264 were recovered. At least 1,260 children were abducted in 2012 and 1,156 were recovered.

The report said only six children were yet to be recovered out of 1,156 abducted in 2013. In 2014, police recovered 1,185 children out of 1,203 kidnapped children while 1,134 children were kidnapped during 2015 and police recovered 1,093 of them.

The report disclosed that most of the incidents of child abduction were reported in Lahore, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar. It said majority of abducted children were recovered from railway stations and lorry addas.

The bench observed that the statistics presented by the police were alarming and the court would dig deep into the matter. The bench adjourned further hearing till Aug 3 and directed the police to also produce parents ofthe abducted children.

Punjab Advocate General Shakilur Rehman also appeared before the court.