Twenty-four children from Meghalaya arrived home safely on December 2 after being brought back from Chikkaballapur district in Karnataka, where they had been staying in an unregistered and poorly maintained facility. The children were formally received at the Directorate of Social Welfare in Shillong, with officials and child-rights representatives present during the handover.
Agatha Sangma, chairperson of the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR), said the safe return marked the priority of the day’s proceedings. She thanked officials in both Karnataka and Meghalaya whose joint efforts ensured the children travelled back unharmed. However, Sangma expressed alarm at the growing frequency of such cases, where children are moved outside the state without proper authorisation. She recalled a similar episode a few months earlier and stressed the urgent need for preventive action.
The SCPCR has written to the chief minister proposing a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to regulate the movement of minors to out-of-state institutions. The recommendation emerged from a stakeholder meeting involving officials from law enforcement, social welfare, education, health, and police departments.