Boy missing from UP traced to Mumbai, lodged in shelter home

"The next time a child goes missing, a community safety volunteer can immediately alert peer networks and locate and repatriate the child to safety," Rahi's colleague Mizan Tejani said. The boy is at the David Sassoon shelter home here now and will join his parents as soon as possible, he said, adding the delay in repatriation is due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A 16-year-old boy who went missing from Uttar Pradesh has been traced to Mumbai and is now lodged at a shelter home here, police said on Saturday. The boy, Dhruv, was found in Wadala area with the help of volunteers of an organisation working in child protection, a policeman at the Wadala police station here said.

The process to send Dhruv back to his native place Varanasi is on, the policeman said. He was reported missing by his mother and aunt in Varanasi last month, he added. Sunita, a volunteer who first located Dhruv, said she saw him sitting near a trash can in Wadala and he told her he had run away from his home.

"The success in tracing Dhruv shows what could happen if community safety networks existed in India," said Rahi Suryawanshi, Senior Associate in Communication and Advocacy at Aangan Trust, of which Sunita is a volunteer. "The next time a child goes missing, a community safety volunteer can immediately alert peer networks and locate and repatriate the child to safety," Rahi's colleague Mizan Tejani said.

The boy is at the David Sassoon shelter home here now and will join his parents as soon as possible, he said, adding the delay in repatriation is due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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