A 12-year-old boy, dumb and apparently mentally-retarded, has been rescued by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Koraput district, which has passed an order for a short-term placement of the child at the Shelter Home run by the Sarvodaya Samiti at Gandhinagar, Koraput.
The child was moving in Jeypore town for last few days and was supposed to be a missing or runway person. Though the incident came to the knowledge of the police, they did not take any action to rescue him.
On Tuesday last week, he was rescued by members of a local NGO and the matter was informed to district Collector Sachin Ramachandra Jadhav, who asked the social workers to produce the child before Jeypore Sub-Collector Birendra Korkora.
later, the child was produced before CWC member lM Pattanaik, who along with ICDS staff Kalpana Mahakud, V Annapurna and Swadhin Sahu of Jeypore block shifted him to Koraput.
The CWC immediately provided shelter to the child at Manas, a school for mentally-retarded functioning at the district headquarters. The staff of Manas again produced the child before the CWC, which passed an order of short-term placement of the child at the Shelter Home of the Sarvodaya Samiti. District Child Protection Officer (DCPO) Rajashree Dash and the CWC Chairman escorted the child personally and dropped him at the Shelter Home on Saturday.
The DCPO has lodged an FIR with the Town police at Jeypore for tracing out the parents of the child. “We have informed the Superintendents of Police of undivided Koraput district, adjacent Bastar (Chhattisgarh) and Vizianagaram and Srikakulam (AP) and also to the railway police, Koraput about the matter along with providing the photograph of the child to trace his parents or guardians,” said CWC Chairman Sadasiva Nayak. An advertisement has also been published in a daily newspaper in this regard. The CDMO, Koraput has been requested for medical examination of the child, Nayak added. After his parents’ address is found, the boy would be restored to them, informed the DCPO.