Home Ministry seeks report, wants anti-trafficking drills

The public outcry at the plight of the two-year-old baby fighting for her life in Delhi nudged the Home Ministry to seek a report from the police and send out a nationwide advisory to step up anti-trafficking drills.

The public outcry at the plight of the two-year-old baby fighting for her life in Delhi nudged the Home Ministry to seek a report from the police and send out a nationwide advisory to step up anti-trafficking drills.

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A Home Ministry spokesperson said that the comprehensive advisory to all stakeholders on missing children “envisages a cohesive approach” to trace them.

More than 60,000 children go missing every year according to the National Crime Records Bureau and one-third of them are never traced. The public focus on the battered baby — brought to the AIIMS Trauma Centre with severe head injury, broken marks and bite marks all over her body — ensured she did not meet this fate. A Delhi Police team this week tracked down the battered baby’s mother after a 20-day search.

A Home Ministry official said that they tried to sensitise police officers during workshops to deal with missing children with the sensitivity this subject deserves.

“I often tell them, just imagine the torture the parents go through… and ask them to imagine how they would feel if their children get lost or are trafficked,” the official said.

B Bhamathi, an additional secretary at the ministry, said that the existing anti-trafficking laws in the country are powerful and needed to be implemented in true spirit.

Bhamathi said the baby —undergoing treatment at AIIMS — was “a case of human trafficking and they are are seeking report from the Delhi Police.”

The Home Ministry also announced a committee headed by former home secretary GK Pillai to identify individuals, state governments and civil society groups that fight trafficking of women and children for government awards.

Munni unites with her 3-yr-old kid

Five months and one week after she had last held her in her arms, Munni, dressed in a yellow suit and a blue sweater, was reunited with her three-and-a-half-year- old daughter on Tuesday afternoon.

While her mother was visibly under duress — attempting to cover her face every now and then — her daughter was cackling, perhaps because the toddler was enjoying all the attention or maybe because the last time she felt her mother’s embrace was before being handed over to an unknown couple. HTC