In two months, Thane Police, Child Protection Unit reunite 18 runaway children with families

A majority of the children reunited are from poor families with no money or resources to search for them; Thane Police and Child Protection Unit work together to trace the runaway children’s parents and homes

A 12-year-old boy staying in Jalna, nine hours’ drive from Mumbai, ran away from his home and reached Kalyan station but did not know how to go back home.

Thane police and Child Protection Unit work together to reunite 18 children, who ran away from home, with their families in two months. Police say the children learn from television programmes and run away from home believing that they can manage on their own. (PRAFUL GANGURDE/HT PHOTO)

He ran away only because his parents scolded him for playing cricket and not studying or attending school regularly. The Child Protection Unit (CPU) was informed about the boy. It swung into action and found him in two days and reunited him with his family.

In the months of February and March, the CPU in Thane and the Thane police have reunited 18 children, who ran away from home to Thane and nearby cities, with their families.

There was a 60% increase in kidnapping cases in 2021 compared to 2020. In 2020, there were 590 kidnapping cases registered in Thane commissionerate, of which 516 were solved, making it a little over 87% detection rate.

In 2021, the cases increased to 846, of which 736 were detected.

Earlier, most cases were of minors eloping following a love affair. However, the trend is now more of children leaving homes over petty arguments with parents.

Ashok Morale, Additional Commissioner of Police, crime, Thane, said, “The CPU and police station staff are giving priority to cases that are registered under IPC Section 363. The CPU was very proactive in most cases. It visited the orphanages and shelter homes to find and reunite the missing children even if there was no case registered. At the police station level, after a case is registered, the team immediately takes action in the matter. We have two dedicated members from the cyber team who are well trained to provide technical support to get the location of the missing children. In two months, 18 children have been reunited with their families.”

A majority of the children reunited are from poor families with no money or resources to search for them. Assistant Police Inspector, who worked for a month in the CPU of Thane, and is recently posted to Anti-Human Trafficking Unit, Priti Chavan, said, “Most of these children learn too much after watching television and believe that they can manage on their own. They leave the house after minor arguments. Most of those we united were those who ran after parents scolded them. We cannot say it is a new trend. It has been observed for a long time. However, we, as a society, have failed to take efforts to resolve it. Our work is to search children, investigate their residence and reunite but we also counsel them at our level.”

Most children are unable to give information about themselves and tracing their family becomes a Herculean task for the police.

Another officer from the Child Protection Unit, who is currently in the team and reunited six children, said, “For each case, we have to dial hundreds of numbers to trace every minor clue given by the children, the name of their street, any shop in the locality or railway station. Then, to contact the family, we have to contact officials of that particular area to verify the details of the family. Not every family lives in a housing society. Some children who live in slums find it difficult to get through to their families. All efforts felt nothing when seeing them reunite with their families and their overwhelming response for our work.”

EXPERT SPEAK

Shreemant Yadav, psychotherapist, Director of Faculty Minds, said, “Once the children are back, it is important to give them the reassurance that they are fine with them and that they love them. They need support and space to be heard. Parents need to increase their communication with their children. The communication involves accepting and validating their feelings and providing a non-judgemental atmosphere. If things have been severe, it’s best to seek a psychologist’s help immediately.”

Yadav shared some tips for parents to deal with the emotional issues their children face. He said that parents need to be more attuned to their child’s behaviour and observe certain red flags like

 Aloofness

 not interested in activities/ or things they enjoyed before

 getting irritated or aggressive often

 not being able to handle a ‘No’ from parents

 having temper tantrums/ emotional outbursts often

 children feeling hopeless or sad frequently.

CASE STUDIES

*** Jalna resident Sayyed Fizruddin, a painter by profession, had lost all hopes after his son was missing for more than two days in March this year. He had no money or resources to look for his boy and could not find a way to get him back. Two days later, he was surprised to get a call from Thane police. Fizruddin said, “The Thane police, with the help of Jalna police, made a video call to identify our son. We were clueless as to how to find him. He went on an Express train and we didn’t even know about it. He had lost a cricket match and was depressed. The police team helped us till he was home safely.”

*** A 14-year-old girl from Badlapur fled her house after staging her own kidnapping in March 2022. She later got scared after staying out for a day and decided to return. With the help of a railway commuter, she contacted her family and came back. However, to escape their wrath, she created a kidnapping story from whatever she had seen on a TV show. The police searched CCTV footage of every lane named by her, made sketches of the people and later found that she was narrating a story that she had seen on TV.