Hyderabad: Hyderabad police, under their initiative called Operation Smile, rescued 325 children who were missing and working as child labourers. All the children were rescued in January.
The officials also booked 14 cases against various establishments for engaging underaged children to work. Among the lot were children from other states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and even Nepal, officials said. The police have identified about 200 hotspots in the city where children are engaged as labourers.
Operation Smile was launched on January 1. It is a month-long programme to trace missing children and rescue child labourers and those engaged in begging.
In Hyderabad City, 17 teams were formed, each headed by an official of sub-inspector rank. So far in the city 325 children, including 11 girls, have been rescued. Of these, 53 children were admitted to rescue homes and 272 handed over to their parents, said the police commissioner of Hyderabad City, Anjani Kumar.
He added that the police was grateful to the management of the three schools for agreeing to provide free education to these children.
The police conduct Operation Smile in January and Operation Muskaan in July to trace missing children involved in child labour, bonded labour, micro industries and begging, and trafficked children, and rescue them by restoring them to their parents or other family members.
Children from different states are rescued and relocated to their parents. Relevant cases were registered and investigated into.
“Seven of the rescued children were below 10 years of age, 38 were aged 11-14 years while 280 children were between 14-18 years of age. During this operation, 14 cases were booked against various establishments for engaging child labourers. Further, a fine amount of Rs 6,75,365 was imposed on the said establishments for various violations.
“The rescued children were found working in different types of establishments/factories, engaged in making bags, bangles, biscuits, bakery, electrical items, mechanic shops, computer work, fabrications, welding shops, tiffin centres etc,” said the official.
“We first observe the children for 2-3 days and then approach them to gain information,” said the additional commissioner of police, Crimes and SIT, Ms Shikha Goel.
The Darpan face recognition application was used for checking details of children with the database. The city police admitted three children to schools.
