HC seeks clarity on number of missing kids in Gujarat

The Gujarat High Court today directed the state government to file an affidavit on the number of missing children in the state.
The direction was given based on a PIL, which claimed that over 22,000 children have gone missing in the state in last one year.
The PIL, filed by Girish Das, says that according to a website on missing children managed by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, more than 22,000 children went missing in Gujarat between May 2015 and May 2016, of which only 11,066 were found.
In response, the government today presented a document before the court stating that only 3,000-odd children had gone missing during the given period, most of whom were found.

A division bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice V M Pancholi directed the government to provide the same document as an affidavit and kept June 29 for further hearing of the matter.
Das raised a question on the "staggering high number of children missing in the state", and sought the court's direction to the police to file FIR for each missing child complaint and also direct the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to restart the missing child cell.
The cell was started some years ago by the CBI on the direction of the Delhi High Court, but was stopped as the government failed to provide the right infrastructure, the PIL states.