The juvenile aid unit, armed with a list of 50 names, is tracing the origins of children who have been at a remand home for over 5 years
Of the list of 50 names of children, five have already been reunited with their families. Pic/Thinkstock
In a renewed bid to reunite lost children living in remand homes with their families, the Juvenile Aid Police Unit (JAPU) has made a list of 50 children who have been at a remand home for anything over three to five years. To their credit, they have already traced the origins of five kids, two of who were kids with special needs. The latest child to be traced home was a 17-year-old girl, living at a remand home since the last three years. Now, 45 more to go.
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Working their way back
So how exactly does JAPU work? It is a team of 30 officers, including a police inspector. “When we got the list of names that had to be traced, we checked against the information with remand homes. Ironically, most of these kids’ listed address is a railway station where they were found. However, we gave priority to teens who can also recall or recognize the surroundings,” said an officer, adding, “The average time being taken to retrace a kid’s home is around three-four days. Our efforts are giving a new lease of life to these children.”
Case of the lost teen
The latest case that the JAPU unit successfully resolved was when it reunited a 17-year-old with her family. Three years ago, the girl, then 14, had left her Borivli home with her friend to head to Gujarat, where the Gujarat police found her. On being asked about her home, she told them about Borivli, so she was sent to the Dongri remand home. When JAPU received her tracing order September 22, their only clue was ‘Daulat Nagar Zopadpatti, Borivli’. Officer in-charge, Senior Inspector of JAPU (Protection) Vilas Datir, along with constables Pawar, Jagtap, Dev and Dawre formed a team and started searching for her home, which led them to her grandmother. She, however, refused to accept her and instead directed the police to her daughter, a ragpicker who had married for a third time with no solid source of income. When the police relayed this back to the Child Welfare Commission (CWC), it asked the remand home officials to rehabilitate her.
Cop speak
Pravinkumar Patil, Deputy commissioner of police, Enforcement said, “The JAPU unit works towards repatriation of child labourers, but during the course of time, we found that there are many kids in remand homes whose parents are yet to be traced. To that end, we compiled a list of 50 children who have been staying at remand homes since the last 3-5 years. Our teams are working on reuniting them with their families and we have also had some successes.”
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