In two years,500 went missing from city

Both Raghav and Ashish remain ‘missing’.

Around 500 people have disappeared in the last two years from Chandigarh. According to the police record,the number of missing people is steadily growing.

So far this year,75 people,including 21 children,have gone missing. In 2009,203 people,many of them children,went missing; this figure for 2008 was 261 people,according to the data available with the Chandigarh Police.

The police and their families have no clue about most of these missing people.

“We have been trying our best to trace Raghav,” Jaswinder Singh,SHO of the Sector-17 police station,said. In Raghav’s case,an FIR of kidnapping was registered on February 2.

In almost all of these cases,their families are hopeful that the missing person will return some day.

“In many cases involving adult persons,they either elope or run away on their own. But even that needs investigation and that’s why FIRs of missing persons are duly registered,” UT Senior Superintendent of Police S S Srivastva said.

Srivastva added that missing children,especially below the age of 14,were an area of concern. “There are others who do not inform the police even after they are reunited with their families,” he said.