Three boys flee from J&K’s juvenile home

Three juveniles have escaped from the state run Harvan Juvenile Home on the intervening night of 2-3 May, underlining the fact that there is a major security lapse in the valley’s only children’s rehabilitation facility. The state government maintains the Harvan Home has all the facilities required by the Juvenile Justice Act of Jammu and Kashmir to reform children’s behaviour.  But state social welfare department officials said that professional counsellors are yet to be appointed to give counselling to children lodged there. The escape of the three juveniles indicates  that the home is not helping these children to reform but making them more hardened criminals, said prominent lawyer Mohammad Ashraf Bhat. SHO of Harvan police station told this newspaper the detainees ran away from juvenile home premises by removing the concertina wires.