ID cards, big screens: At Rajkot fair, 104 lost children are found

And Jasit wasn’t the only child to go missing at the annual fair that draws more than 12 lakh people from across the region. Rajkot police said more than 100 children were separated from family but each, like Jasit, was reunited with parents. And it all zeroed down to a special identity card — for every child under the age of 10 attending the fair this year.

The ID cards include the child’s full name, contact details of parents and the telephone number of Rajkot city police. At the fair’s four entry gates, traffic wardens filled up details on the card, which were laminated and then hung around each child’s neck like a garland.

The simple system meant that the Rajkot Police over five days, like the Pirjadas, found and reunited 104 children who were separated from their family. And it took a combination of community policing — and technology.

From the day the fair began, police handed out 12,000 such identity cards and even hired a videography team to record and flash images of missing children across the several giant screens at the venue.

Chana Dalvadiya’s grandson Jayesh was also reunited with his mother after police flashed his photographs across screens. “My daughter had gone to the fair with my grandson but I got worried when she did not return until late evening. They searched for Jayesh but to no avail. When they eventually went to the main stage, Jayesh was sitting there, crying,” said Dalvadiya, a truck driver.

Police said Chintu Pal, from Bihar who works at an auto-parts factory in Rajkot city, noticed seven-year-old Jayesh lost and crying and took the child to policemen nearby.

Rajkot DCP (Zone-II) Manoharsinh Jadeja told The Indian Express that the idea was scaled up from last year. “The fair venue is small keeping in mind the number of people visiting and therefore, the place is always crowded. So, chances are there that children will get lost in the crowd. To help parents, we had experimented with the idea of ID cards to children last year by setting up a desk at one of the four entry gates,” he said.

“Learning from that, we scaled up the system this year and set up desks at all four gates and issued more than 12,000 ID cards. As many as 104 children were reported lost at the fair and we could reunite them with their parents with the help of the cards and other technology.”

According to Jadeja, most of the missing children were spotted by others attending the fair. “A number of children who had got lost were brought to the police control room by private persons who spotted them. But we need to keep on improving. We need more ideas on community policing,” he said.

Jadeja also emphasised that no data was stored. “The cards ID cards, giant screens, helpdesks: At Rajkot fair, police reunite 104 missing kids with parents helped police also. We reunited children with their parents within 15 to 20 minutes. The longest we took to reunite a child with parents was not more than an hour as the contact details of parents helped us reach them quickly,” he said.

The Janmashtami fair is organised by the Rajkot district administration and is the biggest Janmashtami fair in Saurashtra in terms of footfall, attracting people from most surrounding villages and even neighbouring districts.

It begins two days before Janmashtami and concludes two days after the festival. Chief Minister Vijay Rupani inaugurated the fair last Thursday.

Parents admit that they constantly worry about their children’s safety. “For parents and guardians, the enthusiasm of visiting a fair lasts till the entry gate only. Inside, it is all about holding the hands of our children tightly. We have to stay alert all the time,” said Jignesh Trivedi, a sales officer with an automation company, who visited the fair with his seven-year-old son Jay.

Another parent, Vijay Bodar, a jeweller in the city, said the new system gave parents a measure of confidence. “I got a card issued to my three-and-half-year-old son Rushil. While we were exiting the fairground, my son lost his identity card. Sometime later, I got a call from police asking if my son was safe. I was happily surprised. But I believe police managed to issue identity cards to only around 30 per cent children who visited the fair. If this coverage goes up, parents will be a bit relieved and will enjoy the fair themselves also,” he said.