Commission seeks to engage the police proactively to find missing kids

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has asked Director Generals of Police across the states to develop a mechanism under which parents of missing children will be regularly updated about the efforts being made to track them.

Dr Shantha Sinha, chairperson (NCPCR) confirmed the move to Sunday MiD DAY and said a national policy was needed to tackle child trafficking and missing children.

The commission is also studying the feasibility of compulsory registration of First Information Reports (FIR) by the police under the province of law while recording a missing complaint. Police in many states presently do not even have proper registers maintained to lodge a missing complaint and instead use their station diary to mention the same, explained Sinha.

The commission would also suggest a separate intelligence unit to keep a tab on cases of child trafficking and missing children, as it could expose major nexuses behind the mysterious disappearances of children, added Sinha.

The Delhi police had proposed to set up a helpline in every police station to tackle missing complaints, but Sinha feels that the police have to do lot of preparatory work to train the police personnel to respond to the calls and co-ordinate with other departments for rescue and rehabilitation of children.

Sandhya Bajaj, member, NCPCR say "Police do not have any mechanism to keep a check on the number of missing children and their statistics are an eyewash."

Bajaj added that the Commission has asked states to create special cells tracking information regarding to missing children.