The Malkajgiri Commissionerate rescued 648 minors from child labour, registered 205 FIRs and arrested 205 employers during the month-long Operation Muskaan-XII conducted across the commissionerate limits between July 1 and July 31.The special drive was aimed at tracing missing children, rescuing those employed in hazardous and non-hazardous occupations and identifying children living in vulnerable conditions.Dedicated Muskaan teams, assisted by the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU), carried out inspections at factories, hotels, workshops, construction sites and commercial establishments. Police said the rescued children included 262 from Telangana and 386 from other States. All of them were produced before the Child Welfare Committees for rehabilitation.Police registered 209 criminal cases during the operation and found that many of them were made to work for more than nine hours a day on meagre wages, in violation of child labour laws and the Juvenile Justice Act.The teams conducted repeated inspections at 36 identified hotspots, rescuing children employed at construction sites, borewell drilling units, welding workshops, automobile garages, hardware shops, general stores, mobile phone shops, hotels, bakeries, tiffin centres, clothing stores and tailoring establishments.As part of the drive, officials also inspected 54 Child Care Institutions using the DARPAN application, carried out 5,828 digital searches and organised 97 awareness programmes reaching more than 2,200 members of the public.The AHTU also reviewed 199 untraced missing person cases registered between 2024 and 2026 and successfully traced 99 missing persons during the operation. Published - July 31, 2026 08:21 pm IST