New Delhi, Sep 16 (Inditop.com) Delhi High Court Wednesday rebuked the police for their lax attitude in tracing missing children and said a committee of advocates will be set up to give legal aid to the families of such children.
A division bench of Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice Manmohan told the police counsel: “Don’t try to defend your officers. If a child of a rich family goes missing every police officer hunts for him but when a child from a poor family goes missing, no one bothers.”
On this, counsel Mukta Gupta said police have upgraded the technology to improve the process of tracing such children. “There has been a drastic change. Now, whenever there is a complaint of a missing child, we lodge the first information report (FIR) and post that on the website.
“We have introduced ‘zipnet technology’ which enables all the officials to monitor the complaints of missing children in and around the capital,” she said adding that police in neighbouring towns should also cooperate.
The court also asked the Delhi Legal Services Authority (DLSA) to provide legal assistance to the parents of missing children and asked for suggestions and recommendations from it so that the court can pass a detailed order. The matter was posted for Nov 18.
The bench also said: “It’s a completely traumatic situation for the parents to go to the police station and file the missing (person) complaint and then keep on following (it up) with no legal aid.”
The court also asked the police counsel to prepare a report on the children who returned to their homes after having gone missing.
“These statistics will help you (police) out in analysing the data and observe the trend,” the court said.
The court had taken note of the increasing number of missing children and ordered an inquiry by the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR).
According to the affidavit filed by Delhi Police, 2,210 kids went missing from the capital between June 2008 and January this year and on an average 17 children go missing every day.
