Haryana to launch campaign to trace missing children

Haryana Police and Women and Child Development Department have decided to jointly launch a month long campaign 'Muskaan' from Wednesday to trace and rescue missing children in the state.

DGP Y P Singhal and DG of Women and Child Development Department Amneet P Kumar informed this on Tuesday to concerned officers of both the departments. The drive aims to trace the missing, destitute and separated children and re-unite them with their parents, Singhal said.

The campaign has been divided into two parts. Under the first part, those children would be identified who have either gone missing or got separated from their parents and living like destitute, while the second part is to re-unite them with their parents or guardians, the DGP said.

He said that the first campaign of this kind was launched in the country in January 2015 in which 3,000 missing children were traced. "Out of these 99 were from Haryana," Singhal said. During the previous campaign, it has come to light that missing children are residing in shelter homes, working as domestic helpers or child labourers, living on railway stations or on bus stands and involved in begging, the DGP added.

He said that under the campaign, missing children would be searched on all these places by a team headed by a Sub Inspector constituted in each of the 21 districts, the DGP said.