The state of Gujarat has reported over 40,000 missing women over a span of five years, says the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data.
In 2016, 7105 women went missing; 7712 in 2017; 9246 in 2018; 9268 in 2019; and 8290 in 2020.
In the NCRB data (2022), the total missing report amounts to 41,621 in Gujarat alone.
Former IPS officer and member of the Gujarat State Human Rights Commission Sudhir Sinha said that a missing case is not taken as seriously as a murder case.
“Missing cases are equally serious as murder cases. If a child goes missing, parents wait for years for their child. The police system routinely dismisses such cases,” he said.
Former additional director general of police (DGP) Dr Rajan Priyadarshi said that a majority of missing girls and women complaints are related to human trafficking.
“When I posted in Kheda district (Gujarat) as the SP, there was a case where a daily wage labourer from UP abducted a girl from a financially backward family and sold her in his native state. She worked as a farm labourer there. Though we managed to save her, a large number of such cases go unsolved,” the former DGP said.
Taking a jibe at the BJP government’s Nari Shakthi slogan, Gujarat Congress spokesperson Hiren Banker said, “BJP leaders talk about women in Kerala (The Kerala Story). But neither PM Modi nor Union Home Minister Amit Shah are bothered about women of their own state,” he said.
