Expedite child tracking system, government told

The Delhi High Court Friday directed the central government to expedite operationalisation of the crime and criminal tracking network system (CCTNS) and TrackChild project after expressing displeasure on increasing cases of kidnapping and trafficking of children.

A division bench of Justice P.K. Bhasin and Justice Indermeet Kaur directed the ministries of home affairs and women and child development to file a detailed status report on the projects.

During the hearing, central government's counsel Jatan Singh told the court that CCTNS, which was being developed to facilitate sharing of data and information at various police stations across the country, "will be made fully operational by March 2015".

"Memorandum of understanding (MoU) have been signed between central government and all 35 state and union territories (UTs) for implementation of CCTNS," he added.

The counsel also told HC that till January 2014, a total of over 1 lakh children were reported missing from the country.

"Till January this year, 107,414 children went missing from across the country, but only 29,180 kids have been recovered so far," Singh told the court.

Singh also said that the national portal 'trackthemissingchild.gov.in', targeted at assisting the enforcement agencies with a networking system to monitoring and facilitate tracking of missing children, has been implemented in 22 states.

Advocate Anant Asthana also told the court that the main reasons for children being kidnapped in the capital were for being sold into begging by organised mafia, to childless couples and for child labour.

"The causes of huge number of children going missing in Delhi are organised mafia stealing children for begging, adoption mafia stealing children for being sold, existence of unchecked and unregistered orphanages, organ trade and allurement of children from railway stations and bus stations," he contended.

The court has been monitoring the issue of missing children since July 2012 after a plea was filed by the family of a three-year-old boy who had gone missing.