4,357 children rescued in January, including 912 by Rachakonda police teams
Hyderabad: The Women Safety Wing (WSW) topped the country in achieving 89 per cent of tracing for missing adults and 91 per cent of missing children as part of the ‘Operation Smile XI’. WSW officials rescued 1,793 Nepali boys and girls in the state.
The higher tracing outcomes were enabled by an in-house facial recognition application called DARPAN. The app helped track the missing children whose were listed on Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) and matched them with the photographs of found/ recovered children admitted to shelter homes.
"While the national average of tracking is 53 per cent among adults and 63.3 per cent for children, we in Telangana achieved 89 per cent tracking for missing persons and 91 per cent for children,” WSW director-general Shikha Goel, DGP.
A version of this app, which was introduced by Telangana police, is now being adopted nationally to support the identification of traced persons easily.
DGP Goel explained that the goal of Operation Smile XI was to curb all acts of human trafficking and kidnapping of children and to safely rehabilitate vulnerable children.
During this year, Operation Smile XI was conducted statewide for a month in January and at least 126 sub-divisional police teams with 706 police personnel were deployed for this operation.
DGP Goel also stated that the teams identified vulnerable pockets through a meticulous analysis of past crimes, industrial units (unregulated), brick kilns and areas where children were employed illegally.
Based on this, efforts were made to rescue children involved in child labour, bonded labour, begging and forced begging rackets. Most rescues happened in railway stations, bus stations, religious places, traffic junctions, mechanic shops, brick industries, huge construction spots, shops, tea stalls and footpaths.
Women’s safety wing in action
4,357 children rescued in January, including 912 by Rachakonda police teams.
Total-Boys-Girls
Children rescued: 4,357 -3,897- 460
From other states/ countries: 1,793-1,599-194
Street children: 68-57-11
Rescued from begging: 30-15-15
Rescued from child labour: 3,940-3,582-358
Rescued from brick kilns: 109-96-13
Rescued from industries/ jobs: 210-147-63
