Mumbai, May 4 (PTI) The Maharashtra government announced a special cell to protect children orphaned due to the COVID-19 pandemic or any other reason, an official said on Tuesday.

A statement from the state Women and Child Development department said there were reports of anti-social elements trying to take advantage of children whose parents had died from the coronavirus infection.

It said there were reports of such children being illegally adopted for trafficking purposes and asked people to call on special helpline 1098 or the State Adoption Resource Agency to alert authorities in case they came across such incidents.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)