Alappuzha: Summer vacation is not a happy time for children, especially with respect of their safety. During this vacation period, 21 children in the state have gone missing, according to 'Track Child 2.0,’ a police-initiated website.
The total number of missing cases of children in the state is 3,543. Out of this, 2,837 were found out by the police. At least 463 children went missing in the last one year while 575 were traced, 25 of them during the last two months.
It was during the summer vacation of 2005 that Rahul, 7, went missing from Alappuzha. Mini Rajan, his mother, has been traumatised by the incident. Many parents are in pain over their missing children. Nizamudheen, 15, from Panavally went missing in April 2017. But the police remain clueless. Thajudheen, his father, who fought a long legal battle to trace him, can’t comprehend where the boy disappeared. “He went to see the nearby temple festival along with his friend. But he never returned. The police constituted a special investigation team and issued lookout notices in various states. But no positive result has come,” he says.
In April 2014, Santhosh, 12, an inmate of Mayithara children’s home near Cherthala here went missing. But the police is still groping in the dark about his whereabouts. Santhosh was living in the children’s home after being abandoned by his parents.
The High Court in August 2017 had criticised the government for its lethargy in dealing with child-missing cases, and directed the director-general of police to inform it how many children aged below 15 had been missing in the state in the last three years.
The High Court order came on a plea by Thajudheen seeking a state-government directive to constitute a special investigation team to probe his son’s disappearance.
