By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 14 Oct: As per the instructions of DGP Abhinav Kumar, the Operation Smile campaign will be run in the state again for a period of 2 months from tomorrow onwards (15 October) till 15 December to search for missing children, men, and women of the state.
It may be recalled that this campaign has been held 13 times since 2015. In 2024, this campaign was run from 1 May to 30 June, during which 1,370 missing persons were recovered. From 2015 to June 2024, the campaign recovered a total of 5,981 missing persons, including 2,951 children, 1,721 women, and 1,309 men.
The nodal officer of the campaign at the Police Headquarters level is SP, Crime, Vishakha Ashok Bhadane. Addl SPs and DSPs have been appointed as nodal officers in the districts. For this campaign, five search teams each have been constituted in Dehradun, Haridwar, Nainital, and Udham Singh Nagar districts, while one search team each has been constituted in the remaining districts. Each team has one sub-inspector and four constables. A woman police personnel has also been mandatorily appointed in each search team for questioning the missing children and women. Apart from the above search teams, one legal and technical team, each, has also been constituted to assist each search team.
The state police have stated that, to run the campaign successfully, support of other related departments/institutions such as CWC, Social Welfare Department, Women and Child Development Department, Medical Health and Family Welfare Department, Prosecution, Labour Department, Ashray Grih, NGO, and Child Helpline will also be taken. The missing persons will be specially searched in such parts of the district and other states where there is a high possibility of finding the missing persons, such as Shelter Homes, Nari Niketan, Old Age Homes, Reception Homes, Special Homes, Dhabas, Factories, Bus Stations, Railway Stations, Religious Places, Ashrams, Dharamshalas, etc.
IG, Crime and Law & Order, Nilesh Anand Bharne, has issued guidelines to all Senior Superintendents of Police to make the campaign successful: He has directed that all possible efforts should be made to recover all the remaining persons still missing from the year 2017 onwards. He has directed that the missing persons should also be matched with the unclaimed bodies recovered in the state/bordering states. The teams appointed in Operation Smile should make full efforts to search for the missing persons of other districts in addition to their own. When the missing persons are recovered, action should be taken as per rules regarding their delivery/rehabilitation. Besides this, he has also ordered strict compliance with the norms regarding questioning of women and children during the drive. He also stated that in case any information is received about any crime committed against the recovered or missing children/women/men, strict legal action should be taken as per rules.
