Concerned with the manner in which young children went missing from Nithari in Noida, (Uttar Pradesh) the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has prepared a guideline asking law enforcing agencies to consider such cases as “priority issues.”

Briefing reporters about the guideline NHRC chairperson Justice S Rajendra Babu said the problem of missing children should be treated as a grave matter and the Director General of Police of states should take appropriate steps to sensitise all officers in this regard and also make them accountable.

The guidelines have been prepared by a committee headed by NHRC member P C Sarma, which was appointed in the wake of the Nithari incident to deal with the problem of missing children.

Admitting that there was no national data available on the missing children across the country Justice Babu said every police station across the country should have special squad/missing persons’ desk to trace such children.

“The state police headquarters should evolve a system of mandatory reporting whereby all incidents of missing children across the country should be reported to the newly constituted National Commission for Protection of Child Rights within 24 hours of occurrence,” the committee recommended in its report.

The reporting should be done promptly  and the procedure could be the same as is being followed by the concerned authorities for reporting custodial death cases to the NHRC.

In order to make the investigative procedures more transparent and user-friendly, the NHRC had asked the police to involve the Panchayats, Municipal committees, neighbourhood committees and the like in tracing the children.

“The role of panchayats and such bodies should be extended to prompt reporting of missing children and dissemination of intelligence to the law enforcement agencies,” it said.

As per the directions given by the Delhi High Court, a cell relating to missing persons/children was set up in the Central Bureau of Investigation.

But due to lack of adequate resources, desired results could not be achieved, the NHRC said.