Missing kids: Court summons chief secretary

The Supreme Court has pulled up the state government for not implementing its guidelines on setting up a standard operating procedure (SOP) on tracing missing children and has directed Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee and Director General and Inspector General of Police Lalrokhuma Pachuau to appear before the apex court on November 25 in this matter.

Though there are no comprehensive records on missing children in the state, according to official sources, 3,651 children went missing last year and 2,523 till October 31 this year.

“Roughly around 6,174 children have gone missing between January 2013 and October 2014,” said an official source.

Following the public interest litigation (PIL) by the Delhi-based voluntary organisation – Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which had alleged that over 1.7 lakh children had gone missing between January 2008 and 2010, many of whom may have been kidnapped for trafficking in flesh trade and child labour, the Supreme Court had issued stern directions to all the states and Union Territories to register a first information reports (FIRs) on missing children as soon as a missing complaint was lodged by the parents or relatives of the child.

Other directions included uploading the photograph of the child on the ‘Child Track’, a national registry – website, making enquiries in the neighbourhood and the school for credible information, analysing the family background or reasons for the ‘disappearance’ of the child and appointing a juvenile welfare officer in every police station in the country.

The court had also directed the states to file a compliance report and, last month had come down heavily on those, which had not submitted the action-taken-report to the court.