Gurgaon police inflated the number of children rescued under 'Operation Muskaan', a nationwide campaign to rescue missing children, reported Hindustan Times
The police had reported that they rescued at 1500 kids since 2015, and of them at least “27 turned out to be fake entries”, an attempt by the police to exaggerate the number.
In India, around 180 children go missing on an average every day, including 22 from Delhi. NCRB figure says 41,893 children were reported missing in 2015. And the cumulative number of untraced children was around 62,9988 children
Operation Muskan was the second edition of Operation Smile that was launched in January last year.
Advertisement
When HT visited the addresses of 27 “rescued” children, all of them turned out to be fake entries. Some of the families in those addresses said they were living there for two decades.
Others said they had never heard or rented their properties to anyone with names that appeared in the police records.
Sample this. Police records show a 13-year-old boy was rescued near Wazirpur Chowk in Gurgaon. The entry says his home is under Dwarka’s Palam police station.
An old couple said they have been living there for 20 years and didn’t know any boy by the name that the newspaper found in the police records, or his father. None of the neighbours recognised the child or the family.
Advertisement
Haryana police had said they rescued 4,824 children under Operation Muskaan in July last year, of which Gurgaon police topped the list with 1,057 rescues.
Gurgaon police dismissed the allegations, saying all guidelines were followed during the operation.
“Those rescued were working as child labourers. We have not picked any child. Why will we do such unethical work?” said assistant commissioner of police Anil Kumar, the nodal officer for Muskaan.
Jharkhand and some eastern states are the hunting ground for kidnappers and child tarffickers whose job is to supply maids to Delhi and NCR.
About 33,000 minor girls and boys are trafficked from the mineral-rich but poor state of Jharkhand every year. The official figure is a quarter of it because most of the cases are never reported to police.
