February 19th, 2009

New Delhi: When six children mysteriously went missing from East Delhi's New Sanjay Amar Colony on February 10, the Delhi Police dubbed it a case of mass elopement.

But according to data available with Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), an NGO working for child rights across the nation, there is more to the disappearance than what meets the eye.

According to BBA, nearly 87 minors aged between nine to 17 years have gone missing from slums spread across South Delhi in the past two years.

In the past year, 39 kids had gone missing from Sangam Vihar area alone. None of them have returned and in a majority of these cases the police haven't filed any complaint.

While police claim that parents of these missing children never filed missing complaints, BBA activists said in most cases, the parents were turned away from police stations after being told that the "children may have strayed and will return in some days".

However, repeated attempts by parents to get a missing complaint registered went futile.

Rakesh Sengar, national secretary of BBA, who has been a part of several raids carried out across Delhi to rescue trafficked children, say the disappearance of children hinted at the existence of child trafficking cartels.

The police however deny the claim saying that "most kids from slum clusters elope voluntarily and nearly 60% of such cases are worked out by the police annually". On what happens in the remaining 40% cases, the police are tight-lipped.

In fact, the latest data available with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) as part of the 2007 Crime in India report endorses that Delhi has the maximum cases of child abductions in a year.

The BBA possibly has evidence to prove their doubts about existence of trafficking cartels. "On February 10, we rescued 35 children in four different raids. The kidswere trafficked from parts of Bihar to Delhi," Sengar said.

While the cops may still disagree, a large number of young girls are reportedly trafficked out of Jharkhand to either Delhi or some other metros on the pretext of getting them a decent job.

According to NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, there's more to the disappearance of six minors from East Delhi's New Sanjay Amar Colony than what meets the eye. BBA says nearly 87 minors have gone missing from slums spread across South Delhi in the past two years.

The NGO says the mysteriousdisappearance of the children could be linked to child trafficking cartels. Data available with the National Crime Records Bureau as part of the 2007 Crime in India report reveals that Delhi has the maximum number of child abduction cases in a year.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1232191