Uttarakhand Police's 'Operation Smile' reunites 243 children with families

DEHRADUN:

Uttarakhand police

has rescued as many as 295 missing children and reunited 243 of them with their families during its month-long

Operation Smile

.

Director general of police

(DGP)

Anil Raturi

, said, "The missing children were from

Uttarakhand

and other states as well. Of the total rescued children, 243 were reunited with their parents and remaining 52 sent to correction homes."

In Champawat district, 59 missing children were traced, followed by 52 in Haridwar. Teams of Udham Singh Nagar and Dehradun police rescued 29 and 24 missing children respectively. The ninth phase of Operation Smile was carried out from February 1 to February 28.

Since the drive was launched in January 2015 on the directions of the Union home ministry, Uttarakhand police has rescued 1,571 children. The DGP said that 55% of the children rescued had left their homes after being rebuked by their parents, 12% had run away to avoid studying while 10% fled their homes due to poor financial conditions. About 30% of the recovered children were rescued from religious or tourist's places, 15% from railway stations, 10% from bus stations, 5% from child correction homes and 40% from other places.