Other States - Orissa   

No headway in missing cases

BHUBANESWAR: At a time when news of killing stillborn and newborn babies in Orissa was hogging the headlines, the State police have no clue about 36 per cent of children who had gone missing since 2002.

The startling revelation has been made by the State Crime Branch which has conducted a special survey on missing children in all police stations of the State and two railway police districts -- Berhampur and Rourkela.

As many as 4,447 cases of missing children were reported in the State during the past five years (between 2002 and 2006). Of them, 1,599 children have so far remained untraced.

It constituted 36 per cent of the total missing children, according to a report submitted by the Crime Branch to the Home Department recently.

“The total number of missing children has consistently increased from 683 in 2002 to 1,089 in 2006.

In a period of five years, the number has gone up by 60 per cent.”

Over 90 per cent of the missing children were in the age group of 10-15 years and 15-18 years.

In the two age groups, missing children were estimated to be 2,172 and 1,915 respectively.

“The number of male and female children out of the total missing cases was almost equitable till 2004.

During the last two years (2005 and 2006), the number of missing female children was significantly higher,” says the report.

Compared to 430 male children reported missing during the last two years, the number of female children was 458. In 2006 alone, 269 girls went missing compared to 227 boys.

The number of missing cases is more in the districts such as Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Puri, Berhampur, Sambalpur, Balasore, Cuttack, Khurda and Bolangir.

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