It has been 100 days since the Railway Protection Force (RPF) launched ‘Nanhe Farishte’ (operation of little angles), a special drive to rescue minors who are found at railway stations.
The personnel, who have so far rescued 505 children and reunited them with their families, have one particular factor to thank: the Aadhaar database. They say details secured from the database have helped in at least 90% of the cases.
As many as 246 children out of the 505 cases are from Bengaluru railway station, Debashmita Chattopadhyay, Superintendent of Police, RPF, who is heading the operation, told The Hindu . As many as 438 children were from various parts of Karnataka, while the rest were from other parts of the country, she said.
During the course of rescue operations, the RPF officials cracked six kidnapping cases of minor girls who were brought to the city from Rajasthan, New Delhi, Bengal, Gujarat, and Punjab.
When RPF officials could not get the required information about the families, they decided to rope in the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) officials. “To our luck, over 90% of the children were enrolled in Aadhaar programme and we managed to locate their families. We are also seeking the help of the State police to further track down the accused involved in the kidnapping of minor girls,” Ms. Chattopadhyay said.
As part of the rescue operation, special teams from RPF have been deployed at strategic locations to identify children in distress through behavioural analysis. The officials are trained to observe the child and their companions and question them if they find anything suspicious.
