Under the month-long ‘Operation Smile’ campaign re-launched by the State police from June 1 spurred by its initial success, 331 missing children have been recovered, informed Uttarakhand state director general of police (DGP) MA Ganapathy on Tuesday. He further said that review of the reports related to such children submitted by team members revealed that none of the children had gone missing being entrapped in the human trafficking net. “They all left home either after being scolded by their parents or over some disappointments due to poverty and the like,” he added.
After the state’s top cop had directed the district police chiefs to re-launch ’Operation Smile’, teams had been formed at the district levels with the police headquarters’ additional SP Shahjahan Javed Khan being tasked with monitoring things.
Out of 331, 51 missing reports of children had been registered in the police stations concerned while no report had been registered regarding 280 cases of missing children. Out of 331, 280 children have been handed over to their families while 51 children have been sent to the rehabilitation centres.
Out of 331, 147 children were from other states- 75 from Uttar Pradesh, 13 from Bihar, four from Delhi, 30 from Nepal, two from Himachal Pradesh, eight from Punjab, four each from Harayana and Rajasthan, three from Jharkhand, two from Chhattisgarh and one each from Assam and West Bengal.
In all, 15 children from other states have been handed over to the families. To search the missing children, 14 teams had been sent to Maharasthra, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. State police had formed five teams for Haridwar, four each for Dehradun, Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar and one each for the remaining districts. Each team comprised one sub-inspector and four constables. Team members had been supported by legal and technical teams. The campaign had been conducted in places like shelter homes, dhabas, industries, bus stations and railway stations where possibility of finding of missing children were optimum.
Officers of other departments had also been roped in to have the missing children recovered.
DGP Ganapathy has announced reward of Rs 5000 to each team engaged in the latest chapter of the Operation Smile.