Tracing of missing children becomes tricky task for cops in Andhra Pradesh

Visakhapatnam: The recent kidnap and murder of Class X student Abhay Modhani has once again put the spotlight on cases of missing children in the country.

Over 1.98 lakh children had gone missing in the past three years and arou-nd 45 per cent of them still remain untraced. The Union home ministry’s data before Parliament in March state that nearly 90,000 children go missing every year.

In May 2015, 13-year-old Srisailapu Himabindu, a Class VIII student of a private school at Chodavaram in Vizag district, was kidnapped by her teacher K. Tirupathi Rao.

Inspector of Chodavaram S. Kiran Kumar said the 29-year-old Tirupathi Rao had trapped the girl and later kidnapped her. The victim’s father, S. Srinivasa Rao, field a writ petition in the High Court seeking a direction to trace the whereabouts of his daughter.

“Our teams had gone to Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in search of the girl but we are yet to get any concrete clue on her whereabouts,” said the inspector.

Data shows that 79,508, 69,660 and 48,847 children had gone missing in the country in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively. Of them, 1.6 lakh children were traced and 1.4 lakh are still missing.

Senior advocate and president of Forum of Legal Professionals K. Muralidhar said that though the Supreme Court was upset about the lakhs of missing children and about the government’s apathy towards the issue, no one cared about missing children.

The law enforcement machinery and investigation authorities must have a separate missing children section in every police station and decoy policemen must be employed in every school and special training must be imparted to police officials who are in charge of tracing the children, Muralidhar said.

Since human traffickers easily cross over to other states with their victims, tracing the missing kids becomes a tricky task for cops, a senior police officer on condition of anonymity said.

Low conviction rate leads to rise in cases
Low conviction rate in kidnapping and abduction of children cases in the country is contributing to the ri-se in the number of cases. Most suspects and accused are acquitted because of poor investigation by the police and other agencies.

The Supreme Court had expressed concern over the increasing incidents of kidnapping of children for ransom and said that trial courts must view the offences in the harshest manner and impose deterrent punishment. Data, however, shows that the conviction rate is not enough to deter the crime.

A total of 37,854 kidnapping and abduction of children cases were reported in 2014 and 29,152 persons were arrested in the country. Of them 22,163 were chargesheeted. But only 2,357 (26 per cent) were convicted in these cases.

The conviction rate was 25 per cent in 2012, and 27.5 per cent and 26.4 per cent in 2013 and 2014 respectively. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana the conviction rate was 2.2 per cent and 4.6 per cent respectively in 2014.

Advocates said the police and the prosecution must work harder to increase the conviction rate in kidnapping and abduction cases of children.