Patna, Nov. 2: The police headquarters has directed all the superintendents of police, including those of five railway districts, to register FIRs in connection with missing minors instead of making entries in the station diaries.
The Supreme Court on Thursday pulled up the Bihar and Chhattisgarh governments for failing to find missing children and not registering the FIRs in the cases.
A circular was issued to the SPs across the state by the CID inspector-general (weaker sections) Arvind Pandey on Friday asking them to ensure that the FIRs were lodged.
As per the police practice, the complaints regarding the missing children are lodged in station diaries of the station house officers (SHOs) concerned and not treated as separate FIRs. A station diary is updated by the SHOs every two hours. As a result, the investigation into such complaints proceeded at a snail pace. Moreover, the investigating officers also showed least interest in tracing the victims.
In addition, the SPs have been told to lodge FIRs under Section 154 of the CrPC (criminal procedure code) in such cases and then initiate a probe. If a missing child remained traceless for four months or so, such cases should immediately be handed over to the district-level anti-human trafficking units for in-depth investigation. The officials apprehended that the chances of these missing children used in human trafficking were more.
The police headquarters circular also emphasised the need of notifying the officers as juvenile welfare officers at the police station level. “The anti-human trafficking cell be intimidated about the missing of children after 72 hours of the cases registered at the police station concerned. The para-legal volunteers should also cooperate with the police officers in tracing solving such cases,” reads the IG’s circular, a copy of which is with The Telegraph.
The recent guidelines assume significance in the wake of alleged misuse of minor children in anti-national activities by some suspected terrorist outfits. A boy from Ranchi in Jharkhand was assigned the task of planting bombs at Gandhi Maidan in Patna during the BJP’s Hunkar rally in October last year. The name of the suspect came to the fore during investigation into the serial bombs blasts, which left at least six persons dead and over 80 others injured.
The Gandhi Maidan serial blasts case is being probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on the state government’s recommendation.
Statistics compiled by the police headquarters revealed that a total of 633 children, mostly belonging to the economically backward sections, were still traceless in Bihar. The state recorded a whopping 2,874 cases relating to the missing of children in the last 20 months (from January 2013 to September 2014).
Most of the cases were reported from north Bihar, considered to be vulnerable for human trafficking. East Champaran topped the list with 233 cases reported from the district, which shared its border with Nepal. Saran was ranked second with 208 cases while Sitamarhi, another bordering district, occupied the third place (188 cases). Gopalganj, which is close to Uttar Pradesh border, was ranked fourth with 182 cases reported from the district during the period.
Inspector-general (Patna zone) Kundan Krishnan revealed that the cases related to missing of children were being reviewed after every three months by the CID additional director-general of police. The names of the victims with photographs were also published in the newspapers and photographs with details of the victims pasted at the public places to get clues, if any, he added.
