Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore
Mangalore, Jul 29 : Almost every day newspapers and other electronic Media report about missing people – men, women and children. While this is commonplace, it is disturbing to know that there is a spurt in the number of young girls who are reported missing from the coastal districts of Udupi and Mangalore and the last few months. In this month of July alone there have been at least 5 to six cases of young girls missing in undivided Dakshina Kannada. Vidyarani from Ballalbagh, Mangalore, and Hafsa Banu from Karkala, Sridevi and Prathima from Brahmavar, are some of the young girls within the age of 25 who are reported missing in the last one week. These are just a few names of young girls in addition to many women who are reported missing from these coastal districts.
Needless to say parents of many young girls are a worried lot because incidents of atrocities of all sorts on women, young girls and minor girls all over the country are on the increase and they don’t feel safe sending their daughters to work or to colleges. Many parents are therefore in a quandary not knowing how to surmount this problem and heave a sigh of relief only when their daughters return home from college or work.
To make matters worse the media is content only with publishing the news of their disappearance and not publishing it with the same acuity when the missing girls are traced by the police. As a result, a kind of fear that young girls are not safe has taken deep roots in the minds of the general public, particularly the parents of young girls. In such circumstances “there is a possibility that people might imagine drug trafficking could be one of the reasons for the disappearance of young girls. But there is no such possibility”, says Commissioner of Police Seemant Kumar Singh.
The Commissioner also says that though the police notify about missing persons being traced the media doesn’t show keen interest in reporting the matter. “When the girl is missing and case is registered it is treated as a crime. But once the person is traced it is not viewed with the same yardstick”.
Daijiworld collected the figures of missing people pertaining to the jurisdiction of Mangalore Police Commissionerate from the Commissioner of Police Seemant Kumar Singh. He says “in most cases it is due to love affairs young girls disappear from their homes. In majority incidents they are traced and sent back to their homes. The complaints of those girls or missing people who are not traced are not closed and efforts will be on to trace them”.
These figures for three years between 2010 and 2012 (up to June only) do portray a slightly distressing trend. In 2010 there were 71 females missing out of which only 3 were not traced. In 2011 reported cases of women missing were 69 out of which 9 were untraced. This year there are 26 missing cases pertaining to the six months of the year 2012 and out of these 26 numbers 9 women are still untraced, which is a cause to worry. As the numbers clearly indicate the percentage of untraced missing women is much higher for these six months as compared to the figures of last year.
Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar says “we succeed in tracing most of these missing
cases and in more than 90% cases girls elope with their lovers. Since the people of these districts are literate and aware of the goings on there is no scope for human trafficking at all”.
Asha Nayak, Chairperson of Child Welfare Committee argues “though there are reported cases of many young girls going missing, there is also a likelihood of an equal number of missing cases not getting reported in police stations due to the social stigma attached to incidents of young girls going missing”. Further she says that in a community like Chettiyars many girls run away from their homes to escape from getting married at a young age to men who are quite older to them. In Such cases also don’t get reported in police stations.
Mulling over the issue she suggests that setting up of a new bureau for missing women would be the right step in this direction to encourage people to come forward to report missing cases of women. A helpline just like the one available for reporting missing children (helpline 1098) would also be of great help rather than reporting the case in police stations.
Shakunthala A, Dy Director of Women and Child Welfare Department also says that in more than 90% missing cases police are able to trace the missing woman in question. “Our experience shows that most of these missing cases are due to love affairs and in some cases due to extra marital affairs. There are also a few incidents of women running away from homes due to harassment also”, she stated. She also pointed out that her department would conduct Taluk and District level meetings and would take necessary steps to stymie incidents of atrocities on women.
The matter certainly deserves to be fought on a war footing with the public, the police and welfare organizations joining hands and excogitate a strategy to fight it out.
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