Last Updated on December 2, 2021 at 9:12 pm
The Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta today chaired a high level meeting to review the progress made in nabbing the culprits involved in the case involving alleged adoption and sale of covid orphans in Pampore recently.
The Chief Secretary asked Home department to ensure that every such orphanage and Nari Niketan was inspected by the nearest police station in the UT and a report shared by them with the Home department by evening.
He also considered the administrative measures being taken by the Social Welfare Department and the law enforcement agencies to prevent occurrence of such incidents in future.
Administrative Secretary, Home, Special Director General, CID, Administrative Secretaries of Social Welfare and Law Departments, two Divisional commissioners and DIG, Central Kashmir Range and other senior officers attended the meeting.
While informing that two persons have been arrested, DIG, CKR, informed that the investigation under a DSP ranked officer is going on and it is expected that in about weeks time, the department will be able to get to the bottom of the case.
He further informed that the case is under review and given the gravity of the case, more stringent sections of the law will be imposed on the accused going forward before the case reaches the trial stage.
The Chief Secretary stated that the trafficking of children and womenis an inhuman practice and is absolutely unacceptable. There should be zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and forced labour and added that the government will pull out all stops in ridding the UT of this menace.
He further stated that human trafficking almost always has a narco/drug dimension, which has been seen to have linkages with terrorism in the UT.
Expressing his concern at the incident, Dr Mehta directed that joint teams of social welfare education department, Magistrates from DC office and police be set up to verify the records of nari ashrams, bal ashrams, concerned NGOs and trust and orphanages and asked the social welfare department to coordinate the synergised departmental response in the matter.
Secretary, social welfare department informed that the matter has been taken up with IGP, Kashmir to ensure immediate legal action under the relvant laws.
It was further informed that child welfare committees have been asked to meet covid orphans identified by the department and submit a report to the department.
Dr Mehta directed social welfare department to conduct audit of the human resource and the accounts of these centres for the last 5 years.
He asked the social welfare department to obtain the report regarding the welfare of covid orphans from the field and share it with his office by Thursday evening.
