RANCHI: It was just another day in the life of Avinash Gupta (name changed) when he was attending a business meeting before he received news which would change his life forever. He still remembers distinctly, "My wife told me that she had an argument with our son, Ankit (name changed) after which he left from home and hadn't come back. Sensing fear in her voice, I told her to calm down and said that Ankit must be with one of his friends." It has been six months since that fateful day and the 12-year-old remains missing.
Since then Gupta did everything he could to locate his son. He started a social media campaign, filed an FIR, contacted
Child Welfare Committees
(CWC) across the country. He mobilises himself the instant he receives a tip off about a child fitting the description of his son. So far, none of the efforts have yielded results.
Many parents like him in the state continue to swing between hope and despair.
City-based CWC member, Meera Mishra said, "Some of the missing children are abducted and fall victim to
child trafficking rackets. Lured by fancy dreams or even sold by their parents hailing from poor economic background these children are usually sent to metropolitan cities where they are forced into child labour, prostitution or organised crime. In some cases we also found that the children were sent to
Gulf countries
where they were turned into sex slaves, camel jockeys and exploited for other purposes. Innocent children are entrapped in the organ black market too."
Last month, Mishra was instrumental in the rescue of a child whose story continues to haunt her. "A girl from Gumla who had been captive since she was 9 years of age, was rescued from a railway station along with a new born baby. Now she is 21 years old. She told the counsellors that she had been raped and forced to conceive babies which were later sold. In the last 10 years she had given birth to four children three of whom were sold to the highest bidders," said Mishra.
Union government reports estimate that 180 children go missing across the country every day. In Jharkhand, 841 children have been reported missing between 2010-16, out of which only 101 have been located so far.
However, the figures fail to present an accurate picture. Last year, 92 children were rescued from traffickers, but police had no records of most of these children. NGOs and parents claim that several police stations refuse to file FIRs and only make an entry in the general station diary. Also, details of only 29 cases of missing children have been uploaded on the government's website on child tracking during the past one year.
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