Four months ago, a report landed on Home Minister Rajnath Singh's table from the Ghaziabad Police. Pleasantly surprised to find that the police unit had recovered 227 missing children within 30 days by launching a unique campaign, 'Operation Smile', Singh decided to ask all states to emulate this campaign.
The plan has worked as at least eight states have told the Ministry that they rescued over 2500 missing children in the month of January alone by emulating the campaign of Ghaziabad Police.
ET has accessed the letter written by then Home Secretary Anil Goswami, on Singh's instructions, to the police chiefs of all states on December 12, detailing contours of the new plan. "Since the Supreme Court has been emphasizing upon the early recovery of all missing children, it is desirable that based on the experience gained in 'Operation Smile', all states may take up this initiative," the letter had said.
It added that Ghaziabad Police had sensitized and trained over 100 police officers of various ranks about issued related to missing children, POSCO Act, Juvenile Justice Act and Protection of Child Rights Acts and then sent to various parts of the country including Delhi, Jaipur, Haridwar, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Kolkata to recover missing children in relation to FIRs lodged in Ghaziabad.
The key, the Ministry said, was Ghaziabad cops visiting shelter homes, railway platforms, bus stands, spaces below flyovers and religious places in these cities to find that most children living there were part of the missing children databases.
"Policemen from each state should be properly trained by Home Ministry and trained Ghaziabad Police personnel may also be used as resource persons for such training," the letter said, asking cops to visit locations identified by Ghaziabad Police, take the photographs of such children and if required, do video recording to compare it with the missing children database.
"The details of the identified children may be shared in print and electronic media so that the parents, relatives and concerned police get the information about the children," the letter had said, saying many parents approached Ghaziabad Police after a similar exercise.
The letter said the Ghaziabad Police had found on interaction with children that they had a desire to go back to their parents. "In certain cases, children were not aware of the exact address because they were missing at a very young age.
Ghaziabad police found most children left their homes because of temporary disenchantment with their parents or ill-treatment meted out to them. Later on, they either reached some of the shelter homes or landed up in wrong hands who guided them for begging, rag picking and other kind of activities," the Home Ministry letter said.
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