In 74 days, 1,177 cases of missing children registered
New Delhi: Children from different parts of the national capital continue to go missing as in just 74 days, around 1,177 cases of missing children registered in the city. However, the law enforcement agency has traced more than 500 kids so far.
As per the analysis, in most of the cases, children go missing due to reasons like parents not being at home, academic pressure, losing their way, elopement.
Police sources told Millennium Post that up to March 15, as many as 585 kids were traced whereas 592 still missing.
As many as 1,080 kidnapping cases reported in which 315 were solved and 60 persons involved in the crime arrested.
According to Delhi Police, Crime Branch made sustained effort to identify whether organised gangs were behind the kidnapping of children; however, no such gang was found to be active in the city.
"Crime Branch has also conducted a survey of children begging at various traffic intersections to find whether they had been forced into begging by some organised gang. However, the survey did not reveal the involvement of any organised gang behind child begging," claimed Delhi Police annual report of 2018.
Last year, under the schemes like Operation Smile-II and Operation Muskan-II, police teams visited various shelter homes and spoke with children to find out their residential addresses so that they could be reunited with their families. This resulted in tracing and reuniting a total of 4,636 children.
The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) has identified 50 areas in the city from where cases of missing children are regularly reported. Samrah Mirza, member of DCPCR told Millennium Post that the reason behind the missing is many which include human trafficking, child labour, illegal adoption.
"The human traffickers regularly keeps tab on the children who are economically poor. Once their parents went for their petty jobs like construction labourers, the traffickers flee with the kids," said DCPCR member.
In the year 2017, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has written to State Child Protection Society of Delhi and other states in which they have told them to search the children, who are from different states, living in children home and handover to the concerned state of the minor, so that there can be an effort to reunite them.
