Shimla Police traces 16 missing minors within 48 hours through tech intervention

Shimla: Of the 17 minors who went missing in Shimla district so far this year, 16 were traced within 48 hours with the help of technological interventions like analysis of call detail records and decoding IP addresses, police said on Monday.

The minors included 13 girls and four boys who were among the 153 people reported missing between January 1 and May 20, police said, adding that 132 of them have been traced.

The cyber technical assistance team of police trace the location of missing minors by scanning call detail records (CDR), social media history searches besides dump data analysis and decoding IP addresses that provided significant clues, they said.

The fascination with exploring new places due to social media trends and the urge to meet people befriended online are the leading reasons of children leaving homes in Shimla district, elopement, police said, adding that most of the minors who went missing were from rural areas.

Investigation and analysis of missing children and adults by police suggested that drug addiction, study stress and failure in examination, and unfriendly and tense family environment were some of the causes of kids leaving homes, they said.

Missing children and teenagers are quite vulnerable to crime and delay in tracing them could result in mishaps.

Shimla Police are taking technical assistance and using information technology tools to rescue minors and a majority (95 per cent) of them have been traced within 48 hours, Superintendent of Police, Shimla, Sanjeev Kumar Gandhi told PTI.

In most of the cases, the kids were rescued by enquiring about their social media habits. Generally, children use the mobile phones of their parents and the mobile history of phones helped in assessing directions, and interest in places and provided important clues for a line of quick action which proved helpful, police said.

Nowadays, children and teenagers are tech-savvy and very active on social networking sites like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and others. Screening of their social media profiles came in handy to trace them followed by tracking through CCTV cameras, he said.

Gandhi said a class 8 boy, who used to surf his parents' mobile phones, was traced purely on the clues received by the analysis of mobile search history.

In another instance three girls, in the age group of 11-14 years, who ran away from home with money and jewellery were found after an analysis of the Instagram account of one of the girls who had taken her mother's mobile along and dropped a message to her friend on the photo-sharing app, he added.

There was no report of involvement of any organised crime in minors going missing, police said.