Raising concerns over the alarming number of missing children and women in Maharashtra, a public interest litigation (PIL) petition has been filed by Shahaji Ramdas Jagtap, from Maharashtra’s Sangli, in the Bombay High Court on Thursday (August 22, 2024) seeking stringent steps from the State authorities to carry out an immediate investigation to locate the missing persons.
In his petition, the former soldier, who is at present a government employee, through advocate Manjiri Parasnis, said the statistics of the girls and women missing from Maharashtra was alarming. “The numbers are increasing year by year. Though the respondents claim to have created a mechanism to deal with the issue, the steady and shocking increase in the numbers is itself a sign of the failure of the said mechanisms.”
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The petitioner stated, “The citizen portal of Maharashtra police website states that for every two months between the age group up to 35 years, more than 2,000 girls and women have gone missing till August 2024. The NCRB report reflects the same data. The government authorities are not proactive in curbing the trend and not bringing strict policies and stringent laws and help the families to bring back their missing girls and women.”
The PIL petition raises concern about the alleged inaction by the State authorities on the issue. In an answer, the Lok Sabha was informed on March 14, 2023, that in Maharashtra the number of children below 18 years who are reported to be missing is very high. According to the data, as informed to the Lok Sabha, in the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 the number of missing children was 4,562, 3,356 and 4,129 respectively. Similarly, the number of missing women in the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 was 35,990, 30,089 and 34,763 respectively.
After hearing the matter, a Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar issued notice to the State of Maharashtra, the Department of Women and Children and the Director General of Police directing them to file affidavits which will contain the mechanism to trace the missing children and women with steps to check such incidents.
“There may be various cases of children and women going missing. However, it is the duty of the State to trace them and protect them and, if necessary, provide them safe custody. One of the reasons for such staggering number of missing children and women in Maharashtra possibly is a menace of human trafficking and for which all the authorities, namely, the different government departments, Government Railway Police, Railway Protection Force etc. need to work in tandem to check such incidents,” the Bench said.
The High Court also called upon the Maharashtra State Commission for Women to file a response and suggest measures to be adopted and taken by the State to check such incidents.
“The affidavits shall be filed within four weeks, to which rejoinder-affidavits, if any, shall be filed by the petitioner within two weeks thereafter,” the Bench said and posted the hearing for October 4.
