JOIN USThe Centre on Wednesday informed the Rajya Sabha that around 75,000 children have gone missing in the last three years in the country and are still untraced.
Out of 2.36 lakh children who went missing in the last three years, 1,61,800 have been traced, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Paban Singh Ghatowar said during the Question Hour. “Unfortunately about 75,000 are still untraced,” he said.
The Centre has issued advisories to states to appoint nodal officers at all police stations to deal with such cases and make registration of FIRs mandatory, he said. He informed the House that a web portal ‘TrackChild’ has been launched on a pilot basis to deal with the issue. States are also being asked to update data on missing children on the portal, he said.
As per a data of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 34,406 children were untraced in 2011, 23,236 in 2010 and 18,166 in the previous year.
Answering a question on crime against women, Minister of State for Home R P N Singh said a total 78,533 cases involving molestation, kidnapping and abduction of women and girls registered in 2011 against 70,408 recorded in the previous year. The 2009 figure of 64,452 would further show the rising trend in recent times, as per data provided by National Crime Records Bureau, he said.
He, however, said it was not correct to say that women are not at all safe anywhere. “Crimes against women are committed on account of multiple factors. These are sought to be addressed through legislation, awareness generation and training programmes of law enforcement agencies,” he added.