A four-year-old boy from West Bengal, who was rescued from the Vijayawada Railway Station around ten months ago, was sent back to his home State by the Krishna district Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
CWC officials and NGO workers suspect that the boy might have been kidnapped and trafficked to Andhra Pradesh.
“The boy said his name was Moidaka, hailing from a village called Gomai, in West Bengal,” said Krishna district CWC member Chandragiri Radha Kumari.
The railway police, who had found the boy crying on the platform, produced him before the CWC, which referred him to the Sishu Gruha, run by the Women Development and Child Welfare (WD&CW) Department.
“We tried in vain to trace the boy’s parents. All we could ascertain was that he hails from Gomai, in West Bengal,” said CWC chairperson K. Suvartha.
Scrutinising the CCTV footage at the railway station also failed to provide any leads, Ms. Suvartha said.
After coordinating with Purba Medinipur district CWC, the boy was sent back to West Bengal with a police escort and the staff of Mission Vatsalya of WD&CW on Monday, Ms. Radha Kumari said.
Speaking to The Hindu on Tuesday, Purba Medinipur district CWC chairperson Jibananda Das said efforts would be made to trace the boy’s parents and reunite him with his family soon. Committee members Swapan Kumar Nanda, Anju Das, Debi Pal and Syeda Shahnur Ali, who received the boy, sent him to a child care home for rehabilitation.
“Based on the information given by the child, we will call for a Social Investigation Report (SIR), check missing person cases if any, and trace his family members. We thank the Kishna CWC for sending the boy back to our State,” Mr. Jibananda Das said.
