LOWER DIR: Police in Upper Dir said on Sunday they have arrested five of the six suspects over the alleged assault and intimidation of a teenage boy, a purported video of which was circulated on social media.
Wari Circle Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Fakhr-i-Alam confirmed the arrests to Dawn.
The incident took place on Oct 25, according to a first information report (FIR), dated Oct 30 and seen by Dawn, filed by Wari police on the boy’s complaint.
The case invoked Sections 364-A (kidnapping or abducting an underage person), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 506 (criminal intimidation), 147 (rioting) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
In the FIR, the boy alleged that on the day of the incident, a friend of his called him to a place where two men, including an unidentified tehsildar, forcibly made him board a car and took him to an under-construction house in Shinkarai.
There, he was allegedly assaulted and threatened by the two men who demanded an “unnatural” act.
The FIR nominated a total of six people, including his friend. Those arrested excluded one of the two men who made the boy board the car.
The boy alleged that the two men who forced him into the car and three others present at the house kept him confined in a room for around three hours.
The complainant further alleged that the two men who brought him there and another person recorded the incident on their mobile phones, while two others delivered blows to him with kicks, punches, and sticks.
“Due to their blows, I sustained severe pain in my right shin, right and left arms, and across the rest of my body,” the boy said in the FIR.
The complainant further claimed that the incident stemmed from WhatsApp conversations among friends.
According to the complainant, the delay in reporting the incident was due to death threats from the suspects, who had also threatened to share the video. The video, reportedly recorded by some of the suspects, surfaced on social media days after the alleged incident, prompting police to take action.
The allegations levelled in the FIR have yet to be independently verified by Dawn. Police said they had initiated an investigation into the case.
Child protection NGO Sahil estimates that at least 558 cases of child abductions were reported across the country in the first six months of 2026.
Earlier this month, police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Charsadda arrested a man for allegedly assaulting a five-year-old boy. In late August, Mansehra police held two men after a mother alleged they assaulted her nine-year-old son.
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