At the beginning of June 2015, the government launched Khoya-Paya, a website and app that gives citizens a platform to report sightings of missing and at-risk children. An open platform, Khoya-Paya can be used by the general public, unlike Zipnet and Track Your Child, two internal online search portals used by the police.
The app could be a useful tool in tackling what seems to be an insurmountable problem. According to National Crime Record Bureau, the figure of missing children every year is 70,000. In 2010 and 2011, it was 77,000 and 90,000 respectively. While in 2012 and 2013, 65,000 children went missing.
And it’s not just about numbers. The crimes against children begin at birth, and the sheer cruelty of some of them is shocking.
A Shocking Case
On June 9, the police busted an alleged inter-state child trafficking gang which worked under the cover of an unregistered NGO based in Delhi.
Police had sent a decoy couple, to track the culprits down initially. They offered the couple a male child on payment of Rs 4.20 lakh.
The Police later arrested Vinod Kumar, Shikha Choudhary and Anil Pandey who were in-charge of running a network of agents that kidnapped newborns and infants from small towns across north India and sell them to couples in Delhi.
During the interrogation, the trio revealed that they procured children either by stealing or kidnapping as well as through IVF surrogacy. They also drafted notorised adoption document and birth certificate to be issued in the name of parents showing the baby as natural born baby, a police officer said.
Initial interrogation has so far revealed this inter-state gang trafficked more than 20 children using the cover of the NGO. The institution has no credentials with the state government for adoption under CARA (Central Adoption Resource Agency) guidelines.
Can Khoya-Paya Help?
The stories can be even more bizarre, cruel and gruesome. From the Nithari killings to tales of child trafficking, the fate of India’s missing children is something most of us would rather not think about.
Can the government’s new mobile governance initiative get the public involved? The app, if it works, can be a useful tool for ordinary people to make an extraordinary difference.
(With agency inputs)
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