[Child Trafficking] Will you conduct a discussion or register FIR? Karnataka High Court seeks personal presence of Bengaluru Police Commissioner. The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday took an exceptional decision for casual approach of the State government in dealing with instances on forced child labour and child trafficking and proceeded to order the Commissioner of Police (Bengaluru) to inform the Court about a plan of action in dealing with such instances. A Division Bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Suraj Govindaraj asked the city's top cop to personally look into the issues and report to the Court on June 18 . The Court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by NGO seeking prohibition of children from selling products at traffic junctions in Bengaluru. NGO also informed they have identified more vulnerable children selling products at traffic signals from the hotspot area. KSLSA Karnataka State Legal services also pointed out that one of the main challenges faced during the mapping process was the lack of coordination from government departments.. When the matter was taken up for hearing, the Court was apprised of issues about infants being carried by mothers/ caretakers either for begging or hawking. The Court was also told about mafia forcing child beggary/ hawking as an alternative to begging must be prosecuted as mentioned in the report of the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority report of June 3. The Court also pulled up the State government for its casual approach in the matter.Petitioner Advocate Maitreyi Krishnan prayed that that these instances of child trafficking be given to a special investigation team or to an Anti-Human Trafficking Unit. As the State Government has not taken any action the court directed the learned AGA to provide copies of all the reports to the Commissioner of Police of the city of Bengaluru as directed by Chief Justice Shreeniwas Okha and Justice Suraj Govindraj ,will personally look into all the aspects and report to the Court on 18th June about action taken by the State government and will report to the court on 18 th June.
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