Dr Mohammad Manzoor Alam expresses concern at the grave insecurity children are facing in the national capital.

So far Delhi has been described by different epithets at different times: “rape capital of India,” “diabetese capital of the world” etc. Now the way children are disappearing from the city, it can also be called “child abduction capital.”

According to an official report, about 12 to 13 children disappear every day from Delhi. They are kidnapped right under the nose of the highest authority in the country, from an area with the highest density of police, intelligence and different kinds of security personnel.

The worst affected area is South Delhi, Sangam Vihar topping the list. Criminal gangs lift the children to sell them into slavery and other rackets, mostly in towns within a 100 km of the capital. This is not a new phenomenon, but an old one, reported in the media once in a while.

These murky operations rarely attract the attention of the police even though child rights protection groups regularly inform them.

This is possibly just the tip of the iceberg and the problem must be bigger than it looks. We also must consider the fact that if this is the level of insecurity for our children in high-security Delhi, what would be going on in other cities and towns across the country.

Such things make our tall claims of “India shining” and “India rising” absolutely meaningless. A nation does not rise and shine when its children are trapped in such misery. The solution of such issues is as important, if not more, than rising incomes for the prosperous classes and increase in Foreign Direct Investment.

Also, this issue is no less worthy of attention than the menace of Naxalism and terrorism of different brands. Children being the future of a country their issues are crucial to the aspirations of our future greatness.

This is time for us to wake up and remove this blot of trade in children from the face of the country.