Vatsalya' fails as child missing cases go up

ALAPPUZHA: Police is clueless about many missing children in spite of Operation Vatsalya, the mission to track children leaving home.

On April 8, Nizamuddin, 15, son of  Thajudheen and Rahat, went missing after he left for a temple festival with a relative. But he has not returned yet.
As per police portlet Track Child 2.0, ten children went missing in the last 30 days like him leaving no trace.

DySP Y. R. Restum, who heads the search for him under the Operation Vatsalya, said he had sent a team to Bengaluru and another to Munnar.

“But the members of the team have other tasks too. It needs special teams to trace these children," he said.

Supported by the social justice department with the support of Child Welfare Committee and Childline, the project launched in 2015 with much fanfare aims at not only tracking them but helping unite with their parents.

But the results are dismal. The total cases of missing children registered with portlet are 2,297, and they could trace only 1,496.

District child protection officer Sabu Joseph said Union government also had a similar project to track disappearing children - Smile. But there's no routine follow-up to both.

“The number of untraced children is increasing due to constant tracking," he said.
The home ministry intensified Operation Smile following the Supreme Court on April 17, 2015, slammed the Centre for laxity in dealing with the issue.

The Social Justice Bench comprising Justices Madan B. Lokur and Uday Lalit had slapped a penalty of Rs 50,000 on the ministry of women and child development for not filing a proper affidavit on the status of missing children traced over a period. Child rights activist Zubair said both were no longer active in the state.