Tales of pain and distress escalate every year juveniles in hard crimes
Chennai: Depressed over her mother’s scolding for eating out too often, Seema (name changed) left her home on September 14 on the pretext of buying clothes from a nearby shop.
The disturbed girl instead took a local train to Egmore Railway Station, from where she commuted to Vellore, without having a second thought about her parents’ worries. Despite filing a missing person’s complaint with Mambalam police station, the police could not trace the girl.
The fact that police failed to get the slightest clue about her whereabouts explains of the failed mechanism and official apathy. The girl returned home after a week, without any police intervention. “She was also upset over her poor performance at school. The depressed girl travelled to many religious places. She was spotted by a good soul at Tirupati, who informed her whereabouts to the parents. She returned the next day all by herself,” said her uncle.
However, not every missing child’s story will have a happy ending. Police are yet to crack the baby missing case at Wall Tax road where a nine-month-old girl child, sleeping on the platform with the parents was kidnapped. The parents, daily workers, wait in hope to see their baby.
From January to March this year, 271 children went missing in the state, of whom 58 children are from Chennai, statistics from state crime records bureau states. The fact that many such cases remain unsolved forever comes as a sharp contrast to the state police force, supposed to be best in South India.
Recently released statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) according to which Chennai (with 2,586 child missing cases reported from 2011 -15) has the highest incidents of missing children support the allegations.
The statistics also trash the tall claims of state police that allocates a heavy budget to trace missing children. The state police, in 2015 had spent Rs 185.62 crore on its modernisation, which include: Induction of high technology in handling crimes and settling cases of missing children.
According to Father Thomas P.D., Director of Child line, Dharmapuri, children leave homes for several reasons, including conflict at home, abusive parents, negative influence from peers, academic pressure, sibling rivalry and sometimes to teach fighting parents a lesson. “Many children from broken families refuse to go back to the family,” he said.
Riyas, a class seven student, who slipped out of his residence after giving up on his abusive mother, said, “I could not take in the constant verbal and physical abuse by my mother. At one point when I found it unbearable I ran away.” He is now taking shelter at Child line and does not prefer going home, despite counselling. Dr P. Manorama, former chairperson of Child Welfare Committee, Chennai also stressed on the need for better enforcement mechanism.
