State's Apathy towards Missing Children

India is a classic case where often the basic human rights of poor citizens are thrown into air and disregarded by the State authorities. Nobody could forget the gruesome rapes/mutilation and barbaric killings of innocent children by the M.S. Pandher & his domestic-aide Surndra Koli, who were recently sentenced to death by the Special CBI Court putting their heinous crimes into the "rarest of rare" category, deserving capital punishment. As still the horrific memories of Nithari case continue to terrify people, the recent media reports about the missing children of poor/marginalized families and daily-wage earners in the country's capital city Delhi have shocked and jolted the conscience of the people of India once again. Such terrible incidents constitute a shame and blot on any nation's face, more so, as India is ranked as the second fastest growing economy in the world. What is more worrisome is their occurrence at repeated intervals!

Often there are reports of missing children in different parts of the country. Many are never found. Many of the kidnappings/abductions end tragically in rape, assault and death. A missing child is a parent's worst nightmare. Over 34,000 children have gone missing in Delhi in the last 20 years (National Crime Records Bureau data). In recent years many children in Delhi have been declared untraceable by the Crime Branch's Missing Persons Squad.

It is a misfortune of these innocent children that despite of the guarantees and rights provided under the Constitutional provisions, specific laws and a series of judicial pronouncement and directives, the incidents of missing children are becoming a day-to-day phenomenon.

There lies a clear gap between social progress based on values, and economic growth. This mismatch calls for a balanced social engineering on a major scale based on values, combined with the current state of economic growth, so that every citizen could be able to get one's share of the fruits, the economic growth has brought about to the nation as a whole.