From the Times of India, 18 February 2007
4,500 children go missing in Bangalore

SEETHALAKSHMI S

BANGALORE: Over 4,500 children have gone missing in high-tech Bangalore during the last two years. In 2006 alone, the number of children, who went missing was a whopping 2,316, making Bangalore the city, with highest number of missing children in Karnataka.

An assessment done by the state home department of missing persons has thrown up these shocking figures. Sample this: Of the total of 3,264 children who went missing in 2005, 2,208 were from Bangalore. Similarly, of the 3,631 children who disappeared in 2006, as many as 2,316 were from the city.

“It is surprising that children are missing from Bangalore instead of disappearing from the districts. It is understandable, if the high numbers were in districts because Bangalore is the destination for employment and they may have migrated from smaller towns. We only hope there is not a repeat of the gruesome Nithari in Karnataka,” sources said.

The margin in the number of missing children is so huge between Bangalore and the rest of the state that the closest to Bangalore city’s figures is only Bangalore rural, which had 138 children gone missing in 2005 and 195 children in 2006.

The figures in other districts were below 100 and in some districts, it was a single-digit figure. In the absence of a child-tracking system and police refusing to lodge an FIR when a child goes missing, often parents are left to fend for themselves. “What the department has found is only the cases registered in various police stations. What about those which have gone unregistered or refused to be registered,” questioned a state Child Welfare Committee member. Even amongst the total number of missing persons in the state, as unearthed by the government, it is children who are disappearing more.

If there were 2,305 men and 2,397 women in 2005 who went missing, in 2006, the figures were 2,636 and 2,545 for women and men respectively.