The Theni police cracked some old man missing cases during a mass enquiry conducted last week.
Seven years ago, a man went missing from his house under Theni police station limits and last week the missing link was found and the man was traced to Coimbatore. Likewise, a girl who went missing was traced to Tirunelveli. Last week, the Theni police conducted a mass enquiry exclusively for man missing cases that were pending in different police stations across the district.
A total of 22 pending cases in Theni sub division, 27 in Bodi, 38 cases in Uthamapalayam, 15 in Andipatti and 25 in Periyakulam sub division, were taken up. In the enquiry, the police were able to solve at least 10 old cases. Cases of missing persons are reported commonly across Theni district.
Most of them involve illegal intimacy, love affairs and eloping or wilfully leaving the house for various reasons. Typically in cases like these, the family members and friends do not reveal the entire matter to the police in the first instance. There would always be some information that they withhold and that’s because they think that private family matters may become public. But that actually makes solving the case complicated.
“But, during mass enquiry drives, especially in old cases, people tend to open up and give extra information,” said a police official. “This piece of information that’s new, is the missing link and it help us fill in the grey areas in the cases,” he pointed out.
For instance, a complaint was lodged in one police station as drowning and while the same complaint was lodged in another station as a case of man missing. “During a mass enquiry, we came to know that the missing person had in fact drowned. Likewise, cases of unidentified or unclaimed bodies sometimes turn out to be of persons who had gone missing. But since, the cases would be registered in different police stations, it requires an extra effort to match them,” said the police officer.
“Persons who leave their homes, somehow always leave behind a clue. Nowadays, with Adhaar and cell phones, it has become easier to trace them, but still in remote villages, there are people who don’t use cell phones and leave their house without informing anyone. Sometimes, we have traced missing persons even through social media like Facebook. However, cases of missing persons turning into cases of abduction are extremely rare,” he added.
As per police records, a total of 336 missing cases were reported in 2014, out of which 324 were traced. In 2015, 406 cases were reported and 383 were solved. In 2016, 412 cases were reported and 394 were traced. In 2017, a total of 284 cases were reported and 272 were traced. In 2018, 305 cases were reported and 277 were traced. In 2019, so far, 130 cases have been reported out of which 110 cases have been traced, police said.
