Bhopal: Alarming statistics: 6 kids abandoned daily, 16 infants monthly in State

Bhopal: Incidents of abandoning children, including newborns and infants are on the rise in the state. As far as statistics goes six children are abandoned daily and 16 newborns or infants monthly in the state, reveals Dial 100 service data. If figures available with the Dial 100 integrated police emergency response service is anything to go by, then cases of children being abandoned by their kin is alarmingly rising in the state, whose chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan takes pride in calling himself as mama of bhanje-bhanjiyon (maternal uncle of niece and nephews).

According to abandoned child information available with the Dial 100 service, a total of 4286 phone calls pertaining to abandoning of children were received by the centralised state control room of the emergency response service in Bhopal between April 2016 and December 2017. While 1423 calls informing about children having been abandoned in different parts of the state were received between April 2016 and December 2016, the number grew to 2863 info calls between January 2017 and December 2017.

A comparison of the nine month period (spanning from April to December) in 2016 and 2017 revealed a sharp increase of 697 calls translating into around 49 per cent jump in calls informing about abandoned children. While the abandoned children included those up to teenaged group, as per sources in the emergency response service, almost 90 per cent of these calls pertained to abandoned children aged up to 6-8 years.

Further analysis of the 21-month data of 4286 info calls revealed that Dial 100 received at least six calls daily about children having been abandoned by their loved ones in one or the other part of the state. According to key sources in the Dial 100 service, out of the 4286 children reunited with families or even sent to safer place, majority were boys.

A major city and town wise break-up of the figure during the 21-month period revealed that maximum number of 340 info calls about such cases were made by callers in state capital Bhopal, followed by state’s financial capital Indore with 322 calls, Gwalior (290), adjoining Morena (215), neighbouring Bhind (211), Satna (186), Rewa (181), Sagar (170), Jabalpur (166) and Chhatarpur (125).

The city wise break also revealed that most of the abandoned children were found by the first response vehicles (FRVs) of Dial 100 in the Gwalior-Chambal region, which edges Rajasthan and Western UP. Also, the problem persisted more in big cities like Bhopal and Indore and less in economically backward Bundelkhand’s Chhatarpur district. Also, related data pertaining to infants revealed that as many as 337 infants, mostly newborns/neonates found abandoned were saved due to the timely response of the Dial 100 FRVs.

While 157 newborns and infants were found abandoned by the FRVs across the state between April 2016 and December 2016, the number rose to 180 during the period January 2017 to December 2017. Further break-up alarmingly brought to fore that 16 newborns/infants were abandoned monthly in the state during the 21 month period.

“We managed to save nearly all the infants and newborns found abandoned across the state in the 21- month period,” superintendent of police Dial 100 Amit Saxena told Free Press. Statistics pertaining to total number of 34,742 social crimes reported by commoners to the emergency response service between April 2016 and December 2017, revealed that 4286 abandoned children was second on the list, after 21,262 calls pertaining to various forms of mining.

Fact file

• 4286 abandoned/missing children found and reunited with kin between Apr 2016- Dec 2017
• Most abandoned children were boys, most of abandoned newborns or infants were girls
• 6 abandoned kids reported daily and 16 abandoned newborns/infants reported monthly
• Abandoning children was second highest social crime reported by Dial 100
• 49 % jump reported in calls/cases of children abandoned in MP in 2017 compared to 2016
• Bhopal topped the chart with 340 calls/cases, while Indore stood second with 322 calls/cases
• Gwalior-Chambal region reported bulk of cases/calls pertaining to abandoned children