The Delhi Police has told the Delhi High Court that of the over 19,900 children, who went missing from the National Capital in the last three years, more than 14,000 were traced and reunited with their families.
In an affidavit submitted before the High Court, the Delhi Police said between January 2016 and December 2018, 19,916 children went missing from Delhi and 14,756 of them were traced and reunited with their families as per law.
The HC had on November 28 last year asked the police about the follow-up action taken by them, as stipulated in the standard operating procedure (SOP), after recovering a child as well as the number of cases in which the Face-Recognition Software (FRS) was put to use to track missing children.
The Delhi Police said, as stipulated under the SOP, a rescued kid is medically examined and produced before the Child Welfare Committee or the Juvenile Justice Board, as the case might be, for appropriate directions. Thereafter, a “home verification” is carried out and only after that a child is reunited with his or her parents or legal guardians, the police told the court.
Apart from that, the police said, “A proper enquiry is conducted as to whether the child has been subjected to any offence and if so, legal action is initiated.”
On the usage of FRS, the police said, “As and when a photograph of a missing child is uploaded, it [FRS] automatically searches from the recovered/found children data, including data of Ministry of Women and Child Development, uploaded on all-India basis on the website www.trackthemissing child.gov.in”.
The court had asked for the details of the missing children while hearing a man’s plea seeking directions to the police to trace his minor daughter, who had gone missing in July 2014. The father had moved the court in May 2017 after the girl, who was 13-year-old in 2014, could not be traced for more than two-and-a-half years.
