119 missing kids yet to be traced, govt tells HC

Bengaluru: The State government informed the Karnataka High Court that 119 missing children have still to be found, and that 353 children who have been found are living with their parents, 10 are in child care centres and two died due to HIV and TB infections. From 2015-16 to October 2021, 484 children had gone missing from various institutions managed by the Department of Women and Child Development.

The compliance report was presented to the division bench of Acting Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice S Vishwajith Shetty in response to orders given in the PIL filed by social activist KC Rajanna seeking directives to locate missing children. According to the State government, 66 cases of untraced minors have been handed to the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit, while 53 cases are pending in the respective police stations.

Concerning the steps taken to locate the missing children, the government stated that complaints have been filed with police stations in accordance with SOPs modified by the Government of India and the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights if the children are not found within four months.

The government explained to the court that Telangana has produced an app called 'Darpan,' and that Delhi has built an app for face recognition to find missing children by turning the child's photo at the time of disappearance into an imagined photo of the child now. The government assured the court that if this technology is deployed throughout Karnataka, it will be simple to locate missing children.