IEP Chandigarh
Anti Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) of Haryana Police has achieved success in bringing back the lost smiles amongst hundreds of families by tracing and reuniting 378 missing children and 482 adults from January to August 2022.
The traced children include 205 boys and 173 girls and adults include 226 men and 256 women. Some of them have been missing for a long time.
Sharing the information here today, Additional Director General of Police, Crime, Sh. O.P. Singh informed that Police has also rescued 1760 children from child labour and begging who were found doing odd jobs for their livelihood.
He said that 22 AHTUs are functioning under the State Crime Branch across the state. Instructions have been given that as soon as a missing child, woman or man is found, the first thing to do is to make him or her feel safe. All the police personnel meet a missing person like family members. Efforts are made to establish a relationship of belonging between the two so that the trust of the lost person can be built. This makes it easier for AHTU to find clues about the family of missing person, he added.
As soon as a lost child, woman or man is found, then first of all he/she is counselled by the Child Welfare Committee. The AHTU in-charge has to sit for several hours in many cases. Sometimes the clue only contains the name of the village, a particular place, or a market. In such a situation, it becomes very difficult to find the exact location but the team does not give up and takes rest only after finding the household on the basis of the given clue.
In one case, ASI Rajesh Kumar posed in AHTU, Panchkula came to know that a Divyang is living in Karnal Nari Niketan and speaks only one word ‘daldal’. Taking action, ASI Rajesh Kumar found a ‘daldali bazar’ near Chhapra village of Bihar and reunited the girl with her family after 15 years. In another case, a girl missing from Uttar Pradesh was traced in Kerala. Apart from this, in another case, Manoj (mentally retarded), missing for 18 years, was reunited with his family in Uttar Pradesh by ASI Jagjit Singh, AHTU Yamunanagar.
Often there is a misunderstanding for the police in society that the police personnel neither talk to them patiently nor listen to them, but it’s not like that. Police work 24 hours a day and try to ensure justice for all. All our police personnel meet these missing persons like friends. In most of the cases, we do not even tell the missing person that we are from the police. During counselling, missing people need a friend and police personnel from all our units meet them as friends. They also spend time with them so that they can remember things related to the family. The police work on the clues found on the same basis and reunite the missing persons with families. We see our victory only in the prayers we get from the family, added Sh. O.P. Singh.
