“Finding missing children is a priority area for us. We have squads at each of our police stations as well as one under the deputy CP (enforcement),” said joint commissioner, law and order, Satyanarayan.
Fights with parents over not prioritising studies or excessive phone use, bids to escape poverty, desire to act in movies, entering relationships, etc, remain factors that drive children to run away from home. Police have been using tech in their quest to find such minors.
Op Muskaan: Online tools help police rescue missing children
Ten-year-old Ahmed smiles at the mention of ‘police chacha’. He has long phone conversations with ‘police chacha’ — a 58-year-old sub-inspector from Borivli police station — on how he finds school boring but the sports period is fun. But things were different until last month. Ahmed would freeze at the mention of the word ‘police’. In fact, he had run away from home when his mother found out that he had stolen cash from a neighbour and threatened to call the cops. “I did not sleep a wink for three nights straight until the police team traced Ahmed. He had boarded a long-distance train and reached West Bengal to find his grandparents’ home,” said Zoya Bi, Ahmed’s mother, a single parent. Ahmed is among over 5,000 minors rescued by Mumbai Police so far this year under ‘Operation Muskaan’.
A Ministry of Home Affairs project, it aims to find missing children, and rescue and rehabilitate them. More children were rescued by Mumbai Police till mid-August this year than those rescued in the past five years combined. According to Supreme Court directions, the police are required to file an FIR for trafficking or kidnapping once they receive a complaint of a missing minor.
An SOP put together in 2016 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development gives details on what information needs to be collected about the missing child, where to look for him/ her, making use of CCTV footage on all transit routes, the local and national agencies that need to be alerted and a national portal where the child’s information needs to be uploaded. The SOP also gives details on the procedure to be followed once a missing child is found, which includes producing him/her before the Child Welfare Committee mandatorily, a full medical exam of the child and a home verification before handing him over to his parents.
Fights with parents over not prioritising academics or excessive phone usage, wanting to escape poverty, desire to act in movies, love relationships, etc, continue to remain factors that drive children to run away from home. Police are also coming across cases where children have left home to meet someone they have been chatting with on social media. This could have disastrous consequences. Mishti, 13, used to chat with another girl her age over Instagram.
The girl offered Mishti a chance to travel and live the life she wanted. “One morning last year, we woke up to find Mishti gone. My family and I looked for her everywhere but in vain. We then rushed to the Malwani police for help,” her father told TOI. A probe showed that after Mishti had joined the girl, she was instructed to keep her phone off. The girl took Mishti to Delhi and bought her new outfits and make-up. “We found the two at Nizamuddin station after tracing a phone call that the girl made to a friend. Mishti was unrecognisable, her appearance a far cry from the photograph her family had given us,” said a Malwani police officer.
Mishti’s family believes that she could have been trafficked, had she not been found in time. “We have squads at each of our police stations as well as one under the deputy commissioner (enforcement),” said joint commissioner, law and order, Satyanarayan. The squads have all kinds of tools in their arsenal. There are WhatsApp groups operated by cops across the country where photos of missing kids are uploaded and information exchanged. The railways have also tied up with NGOs that have dedicated booths at major terminuses. “Often, we find that a child’s phone number is switched off, but he/she is active on Instagram or Facebook. We then look for their online footprints,” said a head constable from a south Mumbai police station.
The head constable operates accounts on various social media platforms and uses a pseudonym to befriend pals of the missing minor and gather information on his/her whereabouts. The squads have their own set of challenges. “Sometimes, the family of a missing minor may not provide all information because they are worried of disrepute,” said a sub-inspector. In far-flung areas, police teams often face opposition from locals or face language barriers when they go looking for a lost child.
A policewoman recounts an instance when she dressed up as abeggar and squatted outside temples in Karnataka to look for a 15-year-old girl who had run away from her Mumbai home after being turned down by her love interest. The girl has since undergone counselling and is doing better, her family said. NGOs have chipped in with information that could help investigators. A movement initiated by retired ACP Vasant Dhoble maintains an online database of missing persons with their photos. If volunteers associated with the movement find a vulnerable person on the street, they click his photo and attempt to match it with the one in the database.
In case a match is found, the concerned police station is alerted. Child rights activist Santosh Shinde says that enforcement agencies need to move beyond recording just numbers of rescues and also analyse causes in each case. “The child should be linked with programmes for strengthening his/her family to ensure that he/she does not run away from home a second time. There should be a coordinated effort between all stakeholders to prepare a longterm rehabilitation plan for the child, which should be sustainable,” Shinde said.
