Chapte : 9 Where did the siblings go?

 Chapter: 9    Where did the siblings go?

     Is it possible for the family to eat a piece of food or drink a drop of water if their child has left home in the morning and yet to return back till the night and found untraceable? The pain of losing a child can only be understood by the family who has experienced that loss.
     ‘Missing children’ is a matter of grave concern for the government, society and police. News of missing children or minors frequently are reported in newspapers. We all normally treat such news as routine matter, but the very idea of what the family must be going through sends shivers down the spine. Where would the child be? In what condition it would be? Would it be alive or not, and many such terrible ideas would rummage through the mind of family members. The pain that the ‘missing child’ family experiences is simply indescribable.

     The incidents of illegal human trade i.e. Human trafficking in the country is a matter of grave concern for mankind. The district police are determined to prevent any such untoward incident from happening in the State. In missing children’s cases, the police have taken immediate action and reunited them with their families.

     An incident of missing children created a stir in Modasa region. The date was 3rd February 2023. Bhalabhai, a resident of Modasa came home after day long labour. He had a ten-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son, and it was evening and they had still not returned home. Bhalabhai thought that they might have gone to play in the neighbourhood and felt that they will come home soon. But night fell yet both the children didn’t return home. He searched around but were not to be found anywhere. The very thought that where the children will be at this late hour sent a shudder. Bhalabhai’s family became worried now. Tired after searching everywhere, finally they decided to report to the police station. At night, a complaint about the missing children was registered with Modasa town police.
     The police swung into action on receiving the complaint about the missing children. In such cases wasting of a moment can result in paying of heavy price. The police questioned the parents and gathered the basic information about the missing children.
It is easy to search an adult person’s whereabouts based on his mobile location and other details, but to trace missing children the task becomes much more difficult. It is a challenging task to find the missing children as early as possible.

     The town inspector contacted the duty PSI Jaydip Chowdhary of ‘NETRAM’ branch and shared the details of the missing children. On realizing the gravity of the situation, the NETRAM branch immediately started working on the case. They started checking all the CCTV footage of the town. The investigation was initiated from Leo Police station of Modasa, from where the children went missing. The footages of surrounding shops, offices and showrooms were also checked.

     Time was passing away even while the action was being taken. It was then that a ray of hope appeared. In one CCTV footage, both the children were seen playing before a shop. Immediately the police reached the spot and questioned the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper too said, “Yes, the children were playing here and then slept on the footpath, but I don’t know where they went later.”

     It was second day, yet no specific information regarding the children was available. NETRAM team was constantly on vigil. In another footage, the two siblings are seen playing around a restaurant near the bypass. On inquiry, the restaurant owner told the police that both the children had come there. After eating over there, he overheard both the children talking about going to their maternal uncle’s house in Palanpur.

     Everyone was surprised to hear it. How can such tender aged children of 8-10 years even think of going to Palanpur? It was a fact that the children’s maternal uncle’s residence was in Palanpur. Based on this information, police made an inquiry about the children at the maternal uncle’s house in Palanpur. To everyone’s utter surprise, the children were found at maternal uncle’s residence in Palanpur. The parents and the police all breathed a sigh of relief, on finding the whereabout of the children.

      How the little siblings reached Palanpur still remains a mystery? The incident of the children being found, had a happy ending, but all such incidents don’t have such happy endings. Sometimes such children fall into the hands of anti-social elements. And children are trafficked and used for crime or begging purpose. Minor girls are abducted and tortured and forced in the business of flesh trade at very tender age. Sometimes human trafficking is done for illegal selling of human organs.

    The police have succeeded in finding of missing children in different cases. The missing child record of Aravalli district for the last five years is as follows:
 

Year	0 to 18 years old			0 to 18 years old Girls			TOTAL
	Missing	To be Traced	Kidnapped	Missing	To be Traced	Kidnapped	Missing	To be Traced	Kidnapped
2018	7	7	0	36	35	1	43	42	1
2019	1	1	0	31	28	3	32	29	3
2020	4	4	0	47	45	2	51	49	2
2021	5	5	0	64	54	10	69	59	10
2022	3	3	0	90	75	15	93	78	15
2023	0	0	0	8	7	1	8	7	1
Total	20	20	0	276	244	32	296	264	32

  

     According to a survey, 400 women and children are disappearing every day out of India’s 140 crore population. Missing persons are forced into prostitution or other illegal activities. This is a matter of deep concern for the society and that is the reason why the joint efforts of State Govt., Gujarat Police, and District Police have been very successful in tracing the missing children, minors from Aravalli district.

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©️Translated into English by Pallavi Gupta. 🌷