Police to hunt for missing persons on FB

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Moving with the times, Kerala police are getting ready to use social networking sites for a social cause- to trace the missing persons. Already, Kerala police have held discussions with Facebook service providers for the customisation of the account to suit the purpose. The account is expected to go live from next month.
The unique suggestion came at a meeting of senior police officers with the Chief Minister last month. After Facebook, other social networking sites such as Twitter will also be enlisted. The figure of missing persons in the state is as high as 3,500  in a year and among them around 350 are yet to be traced.
Kerala is one of the states with the highest number of missing persons reported on an annual basis. Only a few states like Delhi come ahead  of the state.
“In the FB account,  there would be details and photos of  the missing persons which would be opened to all FB users of the country. But if any information is received,  it  would be shown only to the police. Since it is a wide network,  it would be of great help to trace the missing persons,” sources said.
The police have already held talks with the FB service providers. The computer wing of the state Crime Records Bureau is looking into the technical aspect. An FB account is a testing platform. If it works successfully, such accounts would be opened on other social networking sites like Twitter.
“Seventy per cent of the Facebook users come under the age group of 14 to 26. They are a very eager and enthusiastic group. We hope that their response would match our expectation which would help us to create some links about the missing persons,” Manoj Abraham, IG Police Headquarters, told .
According to him, the attempt is the first of its kind in the country. The name of the FB account has not been decided yet. The police are looking for a catchy name which should not create any aversion to  the FB users to become ‘followers’ of it. Extra care would be taken to avoid hacking of the account and SCRB would be in the monitoring role, said a police official.