Hyderabad: Concerned by the statistics and the response of the police to cases of missing children, the Telangana High Court on Monday directed the Director-General of Police to critically analyse the reasons for so many children going missing in the in the age group of 11 to 18 years.
The court also said the communities to which the children belong should be noted. The police must file a detailed affidavit by February 6, 2019.
The division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy was dealing with a public interest litigation filed by advocate Rapolu Bhaskar, seeking a direction to the Telangana state government to appoint a special police wing to enquire and investigate cases of missing children in the entire state between 2015 and 2018.
The bench directed the DGP to state in the affidavit how many cases were lodged about missing children since 2015, and of these how many were traced and how many are pending. It also directed that details of rehabilitation provided to street children and rescued children be submitted and the policy regarding tracing the children.
The bench also wanted to know from the DGP how many brothels have been raided by the police in the period from 2015 to 2018. This is because the petitioner contends that nearly 9,000 to 10,000 children have gone missing in that period. Until and unless the police raid brothels, the trafficked girls cannot be found, the implication being that many ‘missing’ children are actually being trafficked.
The Chief Justice said that “these are matters of deep concern and the state government should take these issues very seriously because the children who went missing are our children. Male children are forced into bonded labour and the girl children are put into prostitution.”
Justice Chauhan said, “These trafficked boys and girls are sent to other states like Gujarat, Kolkata etc, and land up in bangle and glass industries, granite and sand mines, carpet industries, gem industries etc., and live in deplorable conditions, which is sheer violation of human rights of a person.”
While adjourning the hearing to February 10, the bench further directed the Registry of the High Court to tag a PIL filed by an NGO, Prajwala, on a similar issue to the PIL.
