On an average,five to eight people go missing in Ahmedabad on a daily basis. Only a few are traced,while the rest vanish. Most of them are women,and a sizeable number of them are aged between 15 and 25 years. The Prevention of Crime Branch (PCB) has confirmed the steep rise in the number of missing people who belong to the age group of 15 to 30 years. In the last three months alone,154 women,a majority of them in their twenties,have gone missing from the city. The corresponding figure for men is 53. No less than 76 girls (both children and teenagers) were reported missing during the period. The missing figure for boys (adolescents and children) was 63 in this period. In the last 17 days,33 women in the city have gone missing as against 14 men,say PCB records. A senior IPS officer said that it is suspected that besides the usual family disputes and eloping,human trafficking and prostitution could be a significant factor behind so many girls going missing. This,he said,was after taking into account the age group and percentage of missing women. The officer admitted that the policemen are yet to make any serious effort to examine the possible threat and the pattern of disappearances,and that only constables and not inspectors conduct the investigations. Out of every 10 missing cases registered at the police stations in Ahmedabad,only three to four are ever traced. Much of the rest vanish. Mohan Jha,Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP),said the police are hamstrung. All cases of missing persons generally end up going to constables and head constables for investigation. We cannot give these cases to sub-inspectors because they are already loaded with a lot of work. The constables handle these cases their own way, Jha said. Attitude of the parents also make recovery difficult. The parents in many cases do not let the police publish photographs or make their childs missing status public,fearing scar on their reputation. This makes it more difficult. Many parents want to hide and highlight cases at the same time, Jha added. Abhay Chudasama,Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch),said there are many reasons why so many girls vanish. One major cause is elopement. Sometimes missing girls come back home after getting married. But in many cases they never return if they are caught by criminal groups or anything untoward happens. Boys mostly come back or are recovered soon,but recovery of girls is difficult, he said. The city police also admitted the lack of co-ordination among the police both within and outside the state. There is a lack of communication and co-ordination among the police of border states like Rajasthan,Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. In cases where people walk away from home or are abducted,help of the police forces of other states is required,which is seldom forthcoming, said a senior IPS officer. Jha said the police are now trying to do something more effective to combat the menace. We are trying to co-ordinate with the railways with CID (Crime) as the nodal agency to work on such cases effectively. We are also trying to sensitise our colleagues to such incidents,but we also need to create an environment where parents and relatives of those missing can freely report missing cases, he added.
