381 juvenile crime cases in five years, says Hebbalkar

NT Correspondent

Belagavi: Minister for Women and Child Development Laxmi Hebbalkar disclosed that as many as 381 cases were registered in the Juvenile Justice Act in the past five years in the state.

She made the revelation in the Council in the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belagavi on Friday. She had been answering a question posed by BJP MLC K Govindaraju.

She added that under the relevant Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, an additional 9,430 cases had been registered under the 33 Juvenile Justice Boards in the last five years.

The minister said that it had come to the notice of the State government that children under the age of 18 had been falling prey to substance abuse.

She added that children protection units had been set up at the district, taluk and panchayat levels to deal with the menace and create awareness.