'Kids older than 14 generally flee of own accord'

AHMEDABAD: Three recent cases of 'missing' kids returning - including those of Sagar Patel and Chirag Parmar - emphasized the fact that most kids who are reported missing have actually left home on their own and return on their own. State police claim that in 90 per cent of cases where children above the age of 14 years are involved, chances are high that they have left voluntarily and haven't been abducted.
State CID (Crime) has more than 2,000 children to track. In seven drives conducted this year, the agency managed to 'find' nearly 700 children from their homes itself. In these cases, the return was not reported to the police.
A senior CID official also told TOI that most children reported returned or found had gone back of their own volition. "We do not want to shrug off our responsibility but are stating that police bear the blame for not tracking the missing children. Our focus is more on smaller children below the age of 10 years who don't know where they are going or what lies ahead. In many cases of missing children, they are well past 16 years of age, want a whiff of freedom and see the world. When girls are involved it is mostly love affairs that are reported as a missing person case or abduction," said a senior official.
It is however also a fact that in most missing kids' cases, it is the kids who have come back or parents of the kids who have maintained the contact. In most of the cases, the parents are left to fend for themselves, allege activists working in the field. "There is some change in police approach but it will take a lot of time to understand it as an important issue," said the activist.