Dehradun police have handed a six- year old girl, Mahi, over to her grandmother, resident of Haridwar, on Friday. She had been living in a shelter home being run by an NGO at Dalanwala, Dehradun for the past two years.
Investigation revealed that her mother had died and her father who had left home around two years ago remained untraced. Her grand- mother had not lodged any report on missing Mahi in any police station in Hardiwar, said Kotwali (Dehradun) Circle Officer Manoj Kumar Tatyal while talking to The Pioneer. Members of the NGO had traced her in Dehradun and sent her to a shelter home at Dalanwala.Mahi had been residing in Dehradun for the past two years.
The circle officer said that that Dehradun police have rescued 46 missing children from various districts under “Operation Smile’ and handed them over to their family members since the month-long second phase of the operation was re-launched from July 1.
Notably, Uttarakhand police had launched Operation Smile in January this year to locate and rescue missing children about whom missing reports had been filed since 2000 in various police stations across the state.