When three-year-old Kulsoom went outside to play in Quaidabad, Karachi, on 23 June 2026, she did not come back. Her body was later found in a flour sack outside her home, and police said a post-mortem examination confirmed sexual assault. More than four months later, no suspect has been publicly named or charged. Her case has become a test of a law that was written for exactly this kind of tragedy: the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Act 2020, which sets out what must happen in Pakistan when a child goes missing.

The Act was passed after the abduction, rape and murder of seven-year-old Zainab Ansari in Kasur in January 2018. It creates a national alert system, a dedicated agency and strict duties for the police.

What the Zainab Alert law is

The Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Act 2020 (Act No. XV of 2020) was passed by the Senate on 4 March 2020 and published in the Gazette on 24 March 2020. It extends to the whole of Pakistan, and it defines a child as anyone under the age of 18. Its preamble says it was introduced so that cases like that of Zainab, a seven-year-old from Kasur who was abducted, raped and murdered in January 2018, do not happen again.

The Act set up the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Agency, known as ZARRA. Its director general is appointed by the prime minister, and it works under the superintendence of the ICT Child Protection Advisory Board. The Act says ZARRA should support and complement the work of federal and provincial police and child protection bodies, not replace them, which matters in Kulsoom’s case, investigated by the Sindh police.

What must happen when a child is reported missing

The law puts a clock on the police response. When a missing or abducted child is reported at a police station, the station must inform ZARRA within two hours, and keep sending ZARRA daily updates on the case. The officer in charge must record the report at once, in the same way as for a serious cognisable offence, and must investigate and try to recover the child.

ZARRA’s job is to raise the alarm. It activates Zainab Alerts carrying the child’s physical characteristics and other identifying details, and it coordinates with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority for SMS alerts and with the media regulator PEMRA for television tickers and radio announcements. It runs the toll-free helpline 1099, where anyone can report a missing child, and it must keep an online database of every reported case, the action taken, its current status and its final outcome, a database that must be open to the public in English and Urdu.

There are penalties for officials who fail to act. A police officer who does not record a missing-child report as the Act requires, or any public officer who wilfully delays or hinders the information, faces imprisonment of between one and two years and a fine of between Rs50,000 and Rs100,000.

The alert system in practice

In October 2020 the Ministry of Human Rights launched the Zainab Alert application on the Pakistan Citizen’s Portal, saying the system would activate state machinery at regional and district level for emergency response and recovery. The alert system was later brought into the ministry’s AWAZ app, and it is integrated with the 1099 helpline.

The Ministry of Human Rights’ five-year report of ZARRA records 5,337 missing and abducted child cases registered between 2020 and March 2025, of which 2,270 children were found. The figures show the system is used, and that a large number of cases still end without the child being found.

How this relates to Kulsoom’s case

Kulsoom’s body was found on the same day she disappeared, so an alert system could not have saved her. But her case is the kind the law was written for: a small child who went outside to play and never came home. The Sindh police chief formed a high-level committee headed by the East Zone police chief to investigate, and the National Commission on the Status of Women took notice of the case in September, directing police to ensure swift, transparent and merit-based investigations.

As of 11 November 2026, no arrest in the case has been publicly announced. The forensic and chemical reports that would confirm or rule out a match with detained suspects were still awaited when progress was last reported. Until an arrest is announced, the case remains open.

Sources: Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Act 2020, Ministry of Human Rights, The News and Stop Harassment Now.