STATE TIMES NEWS
SRINAGAR: Admitting that Jammu and Kashmir lacks facilities for dealing with juvenile offenders, Director General of state Police, Dr S.P Vaid on Saturday said a lot needs to be done in this area as many children were offending the law by indulging in stone-pelting and drug abuse.
“(During) last summer’s unrest, lot of children even came to the streets for (stone) pelting and unfortunately in our state, we do not have facilities to handle juvenile law offenders. You have a (juvenile) home in Srinagar at Harwan and I think a similar one in Jammu at RS Pura, but let me admit before all of you, if you compare the facilities with rest of the country we are far, far behind,” Vaid said. Addressing a one-day training programme for child protection officers on Juvenile Justice and Integrated Child Protection Scheme here, the police chief said drug abuse by children in the country in general and in the state in particular is a huge problem. “…unfortunately if you see the last few years, there have been instances of children not being treated the way they should have been. You have huge problem of drugs in the country and especially our state, huge problem of school-going and college-going children taking to drugs,” he said. Vaid said the government needs to take necessary steps to meet the challenge. “I am part of this government, we need to do a lot in this area. In fact our experience is when we take the children who are forced into circumstances where they offend the law into these homes, some of them run away from there,” he said.
He said the government is coming up with a few more juvenile homes and the state would soon have better facilities for minor offenders.
“We have to walk a long way and we are coming up with a few more (juvenile) homes. I am sure social welfare department is taking a lot of initiatives on this front. We will have better facilities for minor offenders,” he said.
The police chief also said no minor was slapped with Public Safety Act (PSA) during the 2016 summer unrest in the valley. “We do not slap PSA on minors. It is not possible. If somebody is minor he cannot be detained under PSA,” Vaid said.
