BENGALURU: Emphasising the need to focus on the alarming number of missing women and children in the state, the High Court on Monday asked the Advocate General to tell the state government to give priority to this issue like it gave to farm loan waiver.
“Tell the government that this (missing of women and children issue) is also a priority like farm loan waiver,” a division bench of Justice Raghvendra S Chauhan and Justice Shyam Prasad orally told Advocate General Uday Holla during the hearing of a suo motu habeas corpus petition.
The court also asked the secretaries of the Home Department and Social Welfare/Women and Child Development Department to submit an affidavit before September 24 explaining the measures taken to rehabilitate rescued women and children. The court asked the government to scrutinise the whole issue while pointing out that there are chances of those women and children becoming victims of human trafficking or bonded labourers in other states.
Meanwhile, DG&IGP Neelmani N Raju submitted an affidavit to the court detailing the statistics of missing women and children. However, the court pointed out a few contradictions in it and asked the officer to submit specific details of action taken to track missing persons. According to the affidavit, the Police Department has been conducting monthly review meetings at the DCP level at the Police Commissionerate and SP level in districts.
The affidavit was filed by the DG&IGP in compliance with the directions issued during the last date of hearing. In the last 42 months -- from 2015 to June 2018 -- 51,429 persons have gone missing and the Police Department was able trace 37,496 of them.