Karnataka HC seeks report on 141 missing boys from state govt

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has directed the state government to submit a comprehensive report 141 boys who have gone missing from the state observation homes.

Looking into the petition submitted by social activist K.C. Rajanna, a resident of Kolar, the division bench headed by the Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Suraj Govindaraju gave the order on Tuesday.

The bench has issued notices to the Women and Child Welfare Department and Police department in this regard and posted the matter to March 9.

The bench has asked the government that it should provide information on what measures have been initiated to find the missing 141 boys at the time of next hearing.

The incident came to light through an RTI application and the petitioner had approached the High Court regarding the matter.

The counsel appearing for the petitioner, S. Umapathy, stated that, as per the information obtained from the Woman and Child Welfare Department through RTI, from the period of 2015-16 to 2021 October, as many as 420 children are missing. Among them 141 boys are not yet to be tracked. The police have not even conducted an investigation in this regard, he said.

According to the Juvenile Justice Act, every police station should have a separate cell to deal with the missing children cases. In this case, the negligence of concerned officers was apparent, he said.

(With inputs from IANS)