Gerry Moriarty
The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) has been blamed for the so-called punishment shooting of a 14-year-old boy in north Belfast.
The lord mayor of Belfast, Mr Martin Morgan, said the organisation responsible was guilty of "child abuse".
The 14-year-old, one of the youngest victims of such assaults, was in a "stable" condition in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast last night after his four-hour ordeal on Friday night.
The suspected INLA gang abducted him around 7 p.m. on Friday evening as he walked along Brompton Road near his home in Ardoyne, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
A number of newspaper reports said that a gun was put into the boy's mouth and that the gang warned that they would get a man from the area to sexually assault him.
He was found around 11 p.m. on Friday night bleeding from a wound to his left leg at the rear of Fianna House in the North Queen Street area of north Belfast. He was also beaten, police said.
Last year the boy and two of his friends were tarred and feathered and branded thugs in an attack effectively admitted by the INLA.
At the time of the tarring and feathering, Mr Terry Harkin of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP), the political wing of the INLA, said that "the INLA has a direct responsibility to act in defence of working class areas when called upon to do so".
The Republican Socialist Movement, which speaks for the INLA and the IRSP, said an internal investigation into the allegations would be carried out.
One senior source close to the INLA questioned the claims of the boy being sexually threatened and a gun put into his mouth. He also said the boy was guilty of regular anti-social behaviour.
Mr Morgan said he believed the INLA carried out Friday's shooting and beating.
"When you strip everything away this is a terrible case of physical and emotional child abuse," said the SDLP lord mayor.
"People who are guilty of child abuse are treated as outcasts in society, and the people who did this to this boy should also be treated as outcasts," he added.
Mr Morgan said people in north Belfast were being held to ransom by the different paramilitary organisations who were competing for who should have the dominant policing role in the community.
The shooting was also condemned by local Sinn Féin councillor Ms Margaret McClenaghan who said: "If this is for some activity he has been involved in, then the way through this is community restorative justice. It's the only way community disputes can be resolved," she said.
Meanwhile, a 19-year-old man was the victim of a suspected loyalist punishment shooting the same night. He was walking along the Lords Road in east Belfast around 7 p.m. on Friday when he was approached by a man who dragged him into an entry and shot him in the leg.
Despite the republican and loyalist ceasefires and the political emphasis on persuading all groupings to end paramilitary activity, PSNI statistics show that there has been no reduction in the level of so-called punishment attacks.
Last year there were 304 "punishment" shootings and beatings, which is on a par with recent years.
In 2002 there were 312 such attacks, in 2001 there were 332, in 2000 there were 268, in 1999 there were 207, and in 1998, the year of the Belfast Agreement, there were 216.
Last year loyalists carried out a total of 156 attacks - 101 shootings and 55 beatings - while republicans were responsible for 148 attacks - 102 shootings and 46 beatings.
Police only started collating statistics on republican and loyalist attacks in 1988 - prior to that only figures for such republican shootings and beatings were gathered. In the years from 1988 to 1993 - the year before the IRA and loyalist ceasefires - the incidence of "punishment" attacks was far lower. On only two years - 1989 and 1992 - did the attacks recorded exceed 200.