Missing kids mostly killed or trafficked, say police

Mumbai: Kidnapping cases of minors generally go undetected if the minor has been killed or has become a victim of human trafficking.

The latest data on the number of minors missing in the first three months of this year (January to March), has been pegged at 122. Out of the 365 minors kidnapped, only 238 were rescued.

The statistics of the past five years (2013-2017) shows that 5,928 minors were kidnapped from Mumbai, and out of this figure only 5,220 were rescued, while 708 are still reported to be missing in the books of the Mumbai police.

 Former IPS officer and retired ACP, Vasant Dhobale said, “However, after locating the minor and establishing that the minor was not kidnapped but had wilfully gone, the police can take a call of not filing a chargesheet and closing the case there itself.

In such cases, the protocol followed by the cops after locating a child could be either of  two - file a chargesheet under classification A which stands for “True and detected) or file a classification B report that stands for ‘True but undetected,’ in which case the minor had eloped wilfully.”

As a part of the measure undertaken by the police to locate missing minors and regulate these missing cases, the police have laid out a network of informers who keep an eye on unlawful activity and report the matter to the police, which leads to the rescue of many minors who were earlier forced into human trafficking.