Dozens still untraceable

Dozens of people from several villages in the riot-torn Muzaffarnagar district were missing and remained untraceable since the communal violence broke out in the district on Saturday.

According to the police, the number of missing persons could be in “dozens”.
“We are trying to ascertain the exact number of the missing people,” the officials here said on Thursday. They said that the kin of the missing people had approached the police and sought their help.

The police have been directed to gather all possible information about the missing people and inform their relatives and families, the officials said. Relatives of many missing people feared that they might have been killed in the violence. The officials said that the missing people might also have left for some other place and might return once the situation in returned to normalcy.

The residents of several villages said that many of the relatives, who were returning after a “mahapanchayat” in the town on Saturday, had gone missing after they came under attack near the Ganga Canal.