Scouting all the districts of the State and several other States for about a month, joint teams of the Odisha police and the Women & Child Development Department of the State have rescued at least 2,610 children of the State, who had either gone missing or run away from their homes for different reasons.
According to official sources, a whopping 339 of these rescued children are girls, including minors. Over 900 children were also rescued in a similar effort under ‘Operation Smile’ last year. Sources said the rescued children would be produced before their respective district Child Welfare Committees for either restoration with their parents or suitably rehabilitated in child care institutes.
Following a Supreme Court direction in 2013 in a case relating to the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, the State government has undertaken the exercise to rescue the missing children of the State for last three years. The Apex Court in the same order had stated that all the cases of missing children are to be registered as FIRs of cognisable offences and thorough investigations are to be made in these cases presuming them to be crimes of kidnapping or trafficking unless proven otherwise.
Similarly, the Supreme Court had also directed to have a trained police officer as Juvenile Welfare Officer (JWO) in each police station and all complaints of non-cognisable offences pertaining to children are to be investigated after referring them to a magistrate.