When thousands of children go missing in India every year, the concern for their safety falls squarely on several stakeholders involved in their protection. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had earlier launched ‘Operation Muskaan’, which is dedicated to rescuing/rehabilitation of missing children in India. Mumbai police, in their 10th campaign of Operation Muskaan, has traced as many as 145 missing children and reunited them with their families.
The operation was coordinated by IPS officer Dr Balsing Rajput, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Preventive), Mumbai Crime Branch. A special month-long drive was conducted from June 1 to 30, 2021 in which the police force put in rigorous efforts to track down the missing children.
WHY CHILDREN GO MISSING?
While speaking with Indian Masterminds, Dr. Balsing Rajput said “There are as many as 67 reasons due to which children go missing in India. This includes kidnapping and abduction of the children, which is done for various reasons like trafficking, sexual exploitation, forced marriage and child labour. Another reason is elopement, in which mostly female children are found impacted. Thirdly, children from poor family background run away from their homes to the cities for job opportunities.”
Apart from these intentional cases of missing children, some unintentional reasons are also found, such as when children get lost in crowded places and other spots like schools etc. Few cases are also found where children leave their houses due to sense of exploration, family issues, curiosity etc.”
The issue of children missing from their home does not raise concern only for the police but for other stakeholders as well. Dr. Balsing said “Stopping this is not only the duty of the police but also a responsibility of various stakeholders. There is no one-stop solution to reduce these cases and neither is there is a single reason of why these children go missing. We should have a multi-stakeholder model in which various law enforcement agencies, the child protection boards, NGOs, families, prominent people in the society and the police should come together to stop such incidents.”
SPECIAL CHILD TRACING DRIVE IN MUMBAI
In the past eight years, from Jan 2014 to June 2021, Mumbai has recorded 13,005 cases of missing children, out of which 12,278 have been traced while the remaining 727 kids are yet to be found. Dr. Balsing said, “Mumbai being a metropolitan city, people from different states move to Mumbai in search of jobs, education and so do the children. Being a hugely crowded city, the cases of children gone missing are recorded in various police stations.”
Apart from the routine duty and efforts of rescuing/tracing missing children, a special drive was conducted in Mumbai in June this year. Dr. Balsing said, “All the 93 police stations in Mumbai have a dedicated team of sub-inspector and four constables to search the missing children in the state. Sometimes, the police also coordinate with police stations of other states if the missing children are detected there.”
A total of 145 missing children were found in the 10th Operation Muskaan conducted by Mumbai Police. Among these cases, 128 cases were reported in police stations, while reports of nine cases remained unmentioned. According to the data shared by the officer, 105 girls and 23 boys were traced. Out of this group, three boys and five girls were found begging.
Mr Balsing also held that the number of girl child missing is almost double of that of boys. The police, on the other hand, was working tirelessly to put an end to this phenomenon.
