Operation Muskaan: Mumbai Police trace 12,278 of 13,005 missing kids since 2014

In 2014, Mumbai Police undertook a special drive – Operation Muskaan – to trace missing children who were found wandering in the city, and reunite them with their families

In 2014, Mumbai Police undertook a special drive – Operation Muskaan – to trace missing children who were found wandering in the city, and reunite them with their families. The missing children bureau traced 299 of the 346 kids reported missing in Mumbai.

Apart from rescuing the kids and rehabilitating them, the police also follow up on their progress. (PHOTO FOR REPRESENTATION)

Since its inception till July this year, when the police conducted the 10th round of the special drive, 12,278 of the 13,005 missing children have been traced and about 4,000 of them have been reunited with their families under Operation Muskaan. Since 2014, 621 girls and 226 boys are missing.

According to police officers, around 120 children – a maximum of whom are in the 10-18 age group – go missing in the city every month. In most of the cases, the police register a kidnapping case to compel investigation officers to put in more efforts to trace and/rescue the missing child.

Operation Muskaan – which is being coordinated by Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Balsing Rajput, currently posted as deputy commissioner of police (preventive) in Mumbai crime branch – was launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

According to Rajput, there are at least 67 reasons why children go missing. These include kidnapping and abduction, which are done for various reasons such as trafficking, sexual exploitation, forced marriage and child labour. Another major reason behind children above the age of 15 years going missing is elopement. The other reasons include abusive families and unemployment within the families, owing to which children run away from their homes.

Apart from the routine duties, all the 93 police stations in Mumbai have a dedicated team of a sub-inspector and four constables to trace the missing children.

After tracing and rescuing the missing child, the police have to counsel and convince them to reveal their address or mobile numbers of their parents, which is the most difficult task in cases wherein a child has left home and away and does not wish to return.

“We counsel the child, but when we find out that they don’t want to go home, we hand them over to the child welfare committee (CWC) to rehabilitate them,” said Rajput.

If the child is ready to return to their house, it becomes the duty of the police officers to escort them to their house and reunite them with their parents or guardians.

“The manpower is less but we make sure that the kid is accompanied by a police constable. If it’s a girl, a woman constable accompanies her to her house,” said Rajput.

“We have an SOP (standard operating procedure) specifying the number of police officers who need to accompany the kid, depending on the distance of travel,” added Rajput.

Talking about financial difficulties, Rajput said that earlier the money spent was shelled out by the police officers accompanying the child but now the police are given a budget or are refunded on their returns after the state decided to give them ‘investigation fund’ since 2015.

“All the bills have to be maintained for the refund,” said Rajput.

The amount spent includes train tickets of the police constables and the child along with food expanses, travel within the home town to trace or reunite the child and the staying expenses of the police officers which is about ₹5,000 per trip, according to the police.

Apart from rescuing the kids and rehabilitating them, the police also follow up on their progress.

“Even after rescuing them, many kids find their way back to the same streets and began begging or working. We follow up on the kids we rescue even if they are sent back to their homes in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar where parents are mostly responsible of throwing them back to the streets, especially in begging rackets,” said a police officer from the missing bureau of Mumbai Police which works along with several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Maharashtra and other states as well as with CWC to make sure that a missing kid is back to where they are loved and nurtured.

3 boys reunited with families in UP

Three months ago during a police bandobast, a 10-year-old boy was spotted roaming around without an adult in Andheri (East).

On searching him, the police found a stash of cash worth ₹10,000 in his bag. The boy’s dialect was difficult for the police to understand but they gauged that it was from Uttar Pradesh (UP). However, in spite of hours of counselling, the kid refused to divulge any details on how he came to Mumbai or where his parents were. The police then contacted a man from UP who served them tea and asked him to talk to the boy to understand his language, but the tea vendor, too, could not get the boy to reveal his address.

On researching on the missing cases in Maharashtra and other states of India, especially UP, the police reached a breakthrough and learnt that three boys had fled from Phulpur village in UP on June 10. Two of the missing boys were traced in Valsad on July 2 and the third was still missing.

When the boy in Mumbai was told about his friends in Valsad, he revealed that his parents used to hit him over studies. So he and his friends planned to leave their homes and come to Mumbai to look out for work. The boys had stolen all the cash they found at their respective houses before leaving. The other boys traced from Valsad were brought to Mumbai and handed over to CWC. On July 10, the police officers counselled the boy. Two constables took the three boys to UP where they were reunited with their parents.

Teen flees to Bihar, reunited with parents

A 16-year-old girl from Dahisar was reported missing by her parents on April 15. The police officers registered a kidnapping case.

On tracking the girl’s social media account, the police learnt that she had befriended a 16-year-old boy from Bihar and had been chatting with him. On asking the girl’s friends, the police officers learnt that the two had an affair and the girl had eloped with the boy.

The police tracked the girl’s mobile phone to Darbhanga in Bihar, after she had switched it on. On May 10, a police team left for Darbhanga and four days later, the officers traced the couple to the boy’s house with the help of the local police. After counselling, the girl was reunited with her parents in Mumbai on June 15.

As the boy was a minor, the police had handed him over to CWC for further action.