Chennai: Chennai Railway police’s special juvenile police unit has rescued 2,128 runaway children in the past year with most of the rescues being from Central, Egmore and Katpadi railway stations.
According to data released by Chennai division of the Railway Police, comprising Chennai Central, Egmore and Coimbatore subdivisions, there is an increase in the number of runaway children from Tamil Nadu and other states rescued from various stations in the state.
“Those runaway children who have FIRs filed upon their going missing are sent back to the to the jurisdiction of the police station when the FIR was filed, the others are handed over to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
Based on the findings of the Probation Officers working for the CWC, the child is kept in a state-run shelter home or retu-rned to his parents,” a senior GRP official told DC.
Police officers in civil clothes rescue the kids and are housed by NGOs who aid the railway police with the rescued until the CWC takes charge of the kids
The official added that many children are also found who plan to runaway from their home and thus reach the nearest railway station and wait in the dilemma of whether to leave or not.
Of the rescued 2128 children in 2016, 1594 were from Tamil Nadu while the remaining 534 were from other states. Only a total of 20 of these children had FIR reports filed after they had been found missing.
The number of rescues was higher than that in 2015, where 1250 children were rescued. Last year, the number of runways was found to be higher in the Chennai Central sub-division with 1144 children rescued from stations like Central, Korukkupet, Perambur, Avadi, with Chennai Central itself accounting for over 835 of the runaways capture.
