Police transferred after negligence claims

Three Pakistani police officers accused of negligence have been transferred to other districts amid a deepening scandal over a pedophile ring alleged to have abused hundreds of children for nearly a decade, officials said on Wednesday.

A prominent family in the central Punjabi village of Husain Khan Wala allegedly used guns, knives and axes to force children - some as young as 5 - to perform sex acts on video, which they sold or used to extort money from the victims' families, villagers said.

This weekend, the prime minister vowed an investigation after Pakistani media covered protests by parents that police in the district of Kasur had not investigated their complaints.