Haryana Police has traced and reunited 10,868 missing children and adults with their families in 2021. The traced children include 3,839 boys and 7,029 girls who have been missing for a long period of time, the Director-General of Police (DGP) Haryana, PK Agrawal said on Wednesday. He said police has also tracked and rescued 1,813 child beggars and 2021 child labourers who were found doing odd jobs for their livelihood.

Tracing and reuniting missing children, missing women, and children in need of care and protection were among the top priorities of the police during the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, the DGP said.

Out of the total, 9,372 missing persons were traced by the police field units, while the remaining 1496 missing persons were found during the search operations conducted by Haryana Police Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTU) with keen interest and dedication, he added.

Describing the prime objective of this noble cause, Agrawal said the role of the police was also to provide care and protection to the children and adults who went missing and could not be identified immediately.

Such persons were put in shelter homes after being produced before the respective Child Welfare Committee. This helped us in preventing child trafficking and saving innocent lives from any mishaps such as begging, forced marriages, forced labour, domestic workers, etc.

“Our police teams visit public places like bus stands, railway stations, and various religious places, besides the institutions such as shelter homes to search for missing children or persons. These drives are mostly carried out in collaboration with Child Welfare Councils, non-government organizations (NGO), and other concerned departments,” the DGP said.

He particularly mentioned AHTU’s assistant sub-inspector Rajesh Kumar, who is rendering a yeoman service in bringing back smiles on the faces of hundreds of families through this noble cause. Police personnel like Rajesh set an example of proactive policing by going beyond their line of duty and serving people, he added.

The DGP urged the common people to stay vigilant and actively participate in activities including the search for missing persons.

Explaining it further, he said that mediums like social media can be a really powerful tool in finding persons across the world. It would take us a few seconds to click and circulate the picture of those posters detailing missing persons.

“We never know if our single message would contribute to reuniting a missing person with his family,” the DGP said.