New Delhi: Gujarat Police has fact-checked media reports claiming that over 40,000 women have gone missing in Gujarat between 2016 and 2020. Police said that out of the 41,621 women who had gone missing, approximately 95 per cent, or 39,497 women were traced and reunited with their families.
The police added that the data is part of the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), New Delhi, which was cited by many media organisations to claim that over 40,000 women had been missing in Gujarat.
The police department took to Twitter to debunk the reports in a series of tweets.
"Out of 41,621 women gone missing during the period 2016-20 as per the data published in Crime in India-2020 published by National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), New Delhi, 39,497 (94.90%) of the missing women have been traced by Gujarat Police and they are united with their families. The said information is also part of Crime in India, 2020," the Gujarat Police tweeted.
Based on the police investigation, the primary reasons for women going missing are identified as family disputes, elopement, and academic failures, among other factors. The police, however, clarified that the investigation into missing person cases has not revealed any "episodes of trafficking for sexual exploitation, organ trafficking, etc."
The Gujarat Police further tweeted that local police carry out an investigation into the missing persons case as per the guidelines of the Supreme Court and the data is fed into a dedicated website for tracking by other state police units as part of the coordination at the national level.