Last month in Tamil Nadu, a two-year-old girl was found alone in a government bus. The crying toddler was handed over to the Dharmapuri police station which traced her mother with the help of CCTV footage. The mother said that after a quarrel with her husband she had tried to abandon their child in the bus.
In another incident in July, a two-week-old boy was found abandoned in a closed tea stall in very inclement weather in New Town, 24 Parganas district of West Bengal. He was rescued by the Technocity police station after a person alerted the police. The boy was given immediate medical aid. However, his parents could not be located.
Reports of newborn children being found abandoned in garbage piles, dustbins, in bushes by the roadside or places of religious worship are not uncommon in India. Data by the National Crime Records Bureau show that no less than 709 criminal cases of ‘exposure and abandonment of child under twelve years’ under Section 317 of the Indian Penal Code were registered in the year 2021. It is pertinent to note that no case is registered when a child is surrendered to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) constituted under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (or the JJ Act).
