Police personnel are often seen as tough with not much to smile about as their job is mostly related to dealing with hardened criminals. But all that is slowly and surely undergoing a change with a determined group of Jharkhand Police officers running an operation to trace, rescue and rehabilitate trafficked children. The operation carried out across several states aims at bringing back smile to millions of homes that have lost their reasons to cheer – their children.
The name of the mission, Operation Muskaan, sums up the cause taken up by Jharkhand Police, which is the only force in the country to run a state-wide coordinated operation, with its nodal authority being the state's Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Operation Muskaan is the brainchild of Jharkhand Inspector General (Organised Crime, CID) Sampat Meena, who was inspired to launch the mission as she herself is a mother. Speaking exclusively to IBNLive, the 1994 batch IPS officer said, "What inspired me to pursue this operation on a mission level is the fact that even I am a mother. And I know how it feels for a mother who has lost her children. The happiness on a mother's face when she unites with her missing child is divine."
The CID, which is usually known for probing and solving cases that involve dreaded criminals and heinous crimes, has taken it up on itself to bring back children who have gone away from their houses and ensure the success of Operation Muskaan.
The operation has till now been carried out in two stages and at least 700 children have been rescued by the Jharkhand Police till July 29, 2015.
The nodal body to monitor and execute Operation Muskaan is a core team of the CID, headed by Sampat Meena. The operation began with the five-member CID core team gathering information on the details of children who had gone missing across the state, on the basis of both FIRs as well as register entry. Apart from IG Meena, other members of the core team are - Amol V Homkar (SP), Anuranjan Kispotta (ASP), Phoolan Nath (Inspector) and Shankar Jha (Inspector).
With no clue of the whereabouts of the children in most cases, the CID started off by forming different team to be sent to different areas within and outside Jharkhand. Officials from different police stations in the state were handpicked and intermixed to ensure demographic balance. Each team also has a team leader of inspector rank.
Another important aspect taken into consideration while forming the teams was the dialect and language of the children who were to be traced and rescued.
Following the constitution of the teams, they were imparted training by CID and sensitised to understand the mental state of children who go away from their houses.
As part of the first stage of Operation Muskaan, which went on from April 30 to May 13, a total of seven teams were constituted. Each team had 10 members, including a team leader of inspector rank.
The teams then fanned across 12 states, including Jharkhand, and rescued at least 153 children, of which 55 were girls.
In the second stage, the Jharkhand CID formed nine smaller teams, each comprising two inspector rank officers and four junior policemen. The team went to 35 cities across 11 states, including Jharkhand and rescued at least 560 children.
All the rescued children were initially brought to state CID office, located in Doranda area of Jharkhand capital Ranchi. From there, the children were handed over to child welfare committee, which functions under the state government, who have the responsibility of rehabilitating the rescued children.
Though a directive to conduct the operation was sent to all states by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), it was only Jharkhand that actually made it a state-wide mission, thanks to the CID and IG Sampat Meena.
There's another important connection between Operation Muskaan and Jharkhand. The name of the operation came from Jharkhand Director General of Police DK Pandey.
"When I became the DG of Jharkhand Police in February 2015, I was briefed by IG Sampat Meena about missing children and the menace of child trafficking in the state…the operation was conceptualised and the code name given to the operation was Operation Muskaan," DGP Pandey told IBNLive.
From children being made to work at butcher shops to those forced to clean railway compartments, Jharkhand Police, under Operation Muskaan, has re-united hundreds of them with their families.
Those responsible to ensure this take immense pride in their deed. Members of Jharkhand Police and CID feel that apart from it being a police job, they felt that Operation Muskaan made them do a job that was more humane.
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