Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
Whopping 1,558 persons went missing from Nagpur city in the first five months of this year, of which, 1,284 persons returned to their home on their own or traced by the police. However, 274 persons including 16 children are still missing from the city and no one knows about their whereabouts.
The shocking information came to fore during ‘Operation : Shodh’ implemented by the City police to trace the missing persons. A total of 736 women, 668 men and 154 children went missing from Nagpur city till May this year. As per the police records, 1,284 are returned to their home. However, 127 women, 131 men and 16 children are still missing.
Commissioner of Police (CP) Amitsh Kumar said that the police station officers were tasked to reach each and every house of the missing person last month. A total of 1,284 persons returned home after they went missing for a brief period. However, 17.58 per cent missing persons are yet to be traced by the family members or the police, the CP said. Of these missing persons, 16 are the teenagers including 15 girls, the CP said. “We are making all efforts to trace these but their whereabouts are yet to be identified,” the police commissioner said. The 15 missing teenage girls are residents of Nandanvan, Hudkeshwar, Yashodhara, Pardi and Kalamna area of Nagpur.
Experts on the issue stated that financial problems, family issues or domestic violence, property disputes, mental illness, miscommunication, and being a victim of crime are some of the reasons for people going missing. “Some people do not get enough emotional support for their problems at home. Therefore, they chose to simply walk away from their loved ones. After realising the harsh reality of the world, a major chunk of these missing persons return home,” the expert said.
On the issue of missing cases of minor girls, a police official said that most of the girls went missing with their boyfriends. Parents of most of these missing girls are daily wage workers, he said and added that proper communication with parents could resolve the issue.
CP Kumar said that all the beat marshals and police station officers were alerted to trace the missing persons.
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