The Mumbai police’s Juvenile Aid Protection Unit (JAPU) has helped a boy who had been missing for past seven months reunite with his family.
An JAPU officer said, “The boy was separated from his mother in Hyderabad and he had started working at a tea shop for ₹100 a day. But the Hyderabad police caught him during a raid on shops employing child labourers. When the boy revealed that he hailed from Mumbai, the Child and Woman Welfare Committee helped the police shift him to the Child Remand Home in Dongri.”
The JAPU took the boy into their custody from the remand home and tried to find out the whereabouts of his family. He could not recall anything but the words ‘Kandivali Gaon’ and ‘chappal ki dukaan’.
Special team formed
The JAPU then formed a special team under the supervision of DCP Pravin Kumar. The team reached Kandivali on Friday and traced the boy’s home with the help of local residents. Police Inspector Vilas Datir, Assistant Police Inspector Shubhda More, head constables Avinash Chavhan and Aziz Momin and constable Devang Kamble were part of the investigation.
The boy’s mother said her brother was booked by the Samta Nagar police in a case. She feared that her son’s life would be under threat and took him to Hyderabad. However, the boy went missing in a market after they reached Hyderabad. The mother did not lodge a missing person complaint either in Hyderabad or Mumbai.
So far this year, the JAPU has reunited 10 missing children with their families. Last year, the unit reunited 431 children with their family members.
