GUWAHATI, Jan 4 � The list of people gone missing in Assam is growing at an alarming rate year after year with nearly 17,000 such cases reported in the State in the last five years.����
What is more disturbing is that, more than 60 per cent of them still remain traceless. It is further disturbing to note that of the 17,000 reported cases of missing persons, over 6,850 were children and nearly 6,000 were female adults.
Statistics also reflect a poor tracking�mechanism on the part of the law enforcers in the State. Till July 2013, as many as 2,247 persons were reported to be missing, while during the same period only 829 persons could be traced.�
Alarmingly, children and female adults have gone missing in most numbers and the graph is consistently showing an upward trend. In 2012 too, of the 4,469 persons gone missing, 1,852 were children and 1,570 female adults. During the same period, only 698 children could be traced along with 540 female adults.
The State machinery recently expressed its concern over the disturbing trend. When asked, a senior police official said the cases consist mostly of elopement, but at the same time conceded that the figures related to missing children and female were a matter of concern. He said the Police Department still lacked proper coordination with its counterparts in other States, which stood as a stumbling block in the discharge of its functions. Factors like human trafficking also are contributing immensely to the trend, he added.
