Cyberabad police initiates ‘Operation Smile-XI’

Hyderabad: To rescue and rehabilitate the homeless children and those forced into child labour and identifying children who are beggars and ragpickers, the Cyberabad Police launched Operation Smile-XI for a period of one month that started from January 1. For the operation, 11 teams were formed to identify, and rescue/rehabilitate children trapped in trafficking.

On Monday, Women & Children Safety Wing (W&CSW) along with Anti-Human Trafficking (AHTU) conducted an Operation Smile-XI Convergence meeting. The meeting was conducted on the functioning of Operation Smile-XI which is formed to trace out missing children and rescue children from begging, rag picking, child labour/ trafficking children, bonded labour, etc.

In a convergence meeting, K Srujana, DCP (W&CSW), Cyberabad stated, “We will be using the facial recognition software application ‘Darphan’ for identifying missing children and unidentified children, children who were separated from their families due to various reasons. 11 special teams comprising one Sub Inspector, 4 police constables including one woman police constable per team are formed.

The Operation Smile-XI will continue till the end of January with the support of the stakeholder departments’ officials. The police have identified clusters/hotspots where children were found forced into labour based on the data of the previous cases. Teams along with other stakeholder departments will coordinate the rescue and rehabilitation work