While the Uttarakhand Police are touting the Operation Mukti they are going to start from May 1 in Dehradun against begging, especially by children, as a big initiative, some people have started raising questions on the campaign plan.
Founder of a non governmental organisation Empowering People Society (EPS) Gyanendra Kumar said that the campaign plan has many ground level flaws, about which he raised questions in the first meeting that was held in Police Headquarters. Criticising the police department, he opined that the department is simply trying to get media publicity because they have no concrete plans.
He said that the field units that are going to identify these child beggars are untrained and have no experience of such kind. He said, “The first point is that during December 2017 Uttarakhand High Court gave the orders to conduct DNA tests of adults accompanying child beggars, so why it has taken the authorities concerned more than two years to act on that order?”
He further said, “It is the duty of the police department to act against those who are doing any crime. Begging is a crime and so is supporting it. If you’re giving money to a beggar you’re also supporting a crime. The question is why does police need such an elaborate plan to do the duty that they are already supposed to do. It is just a plan to attract publicity through the media.”
When asked about it, the Director General, Law and Order, Ashok Kumar said, “We tried doing that earlier. In the drive conducted in February-March this year we handed over 87 child beggars to the child welfare committee (CWC), but the result was not as per the expectations. So, this time we are trying to have a fool proof campaign tackling aspects from identification to rehabilitation.”
Member of CWC, Sudhir Bhatt said, “Earlier, when we identified those 87 child beggars, the biggest problem was that none of them were from Uttarakhand- most were from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The verification process has some loopholes which have been taken into account this time. We are also planning to do coordinate with police of respective states for verification, that way we will be able to correctly identify children from outside our state too.”
It is important to mention that this campaign will be conducted for two months. Four teams have been made, consisting of 22 officers including members of anti-trafficking units. Circle Officer (City) Shailesh Suyal has been appointed as the Nodal Officer for the campaign.