Top cops blame lure of Bollywood for 'lost' kids coming to Mumbai

(From left) Samir Zaveri, Prabhat Kumar and Vasant Dhoble at the seminar on Wednesday evening. PICS/SHADAB KHAN

Blame it on Bollywood. Or, starry-eyed kids lured by dreams like, "I will see Salman, rub shoulders with Shahrukh or become a Ranvir". "But, it is one of the lure pulling kids to Mumbai," said Prabhat Kumar, special IG of police (law and order), Maharashtra at a seminar titled "Missing Persons: What can you do when someone goes missing?" held on a rain-hit Wednesday evening in Prabhadevi.

The event, organised by Moneylife Foundation event, was aimed at encouraging the masses to help re-unite lost and missing persons with their families.

Among the troika of speakers was activist Samir Zaveri, who has dedicated his life to helping railway accident victims, after losing his legs in a train accident. Zaveri spoke about how he impressed upon the Railways the importance of updating details about accident victims on the Shodh website - a search engine for victims who died in mishaps and for missing persons - so that desperate families have some recourse to information.

Zaveri was followed by retired assistant commissioner of police Vasant Dhoble, who once struck fear into the pub and bar circuit with his hockey-wielding smash acts. Dhoble started an initiative called "missing persons" to trace the missing. He spoke about children being kidnapped from everywhere, then bought, sold and auctioned in Mumbai for begging. "Begging is an urban phenomenon," he said. In another instance he spoke about mothers, "who have sold their little girls into the sex trade."

Dhoble exhorted ordinary people to get involved, "in helping find missing persons because there is such deep joy in that".

He used an example to bolster that advice, recalling how a little girl reunited her missing classmate with her family. "A Dharavi schoolgirl went ‘missing' a few years ago. The missing girl's classmate was visiting her maternal uncle during the Diwali holidays and to her shock, she spotted the girl begging at a crossroad in Mulund. She went up to the girl to ask her what she was doing, but the beggar girl merely pointed to a lady at the signal and said, do not approach me or she will turn you into a beggar too." Dhoble went on to say that the classmate told her father about spotting her classmate. They then approached the police, and the girl was rescued and reunited with her family. "If a child can take the initiative then, why can't we, as adults, do so?" he asked.Kumar touched upon missing senior citizens who have Alzheimer's or dementia. "It is important families keep an identity on them, and even a mobile phone can solve many problems," he said.

The overall message, however, for the audience was, "If you have rescued even one child and re-united him/her with his/her family, you have not lived in vain."