Ahmedabad: The Gujarat Police on Tuesday said 39,497 out of 41,621 women who went missing in the state between 2016 and 2020 have been traced and reunited with their families, and currently only "1000 plus" women remain missing.
The police dismissed as "misleading" and "half-truths" the reports published by some media outlets that cited NCRB data to claim that more than 40,000 women have gone missing in Gujarat in five years.
"The same NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) report also mentioned that more than 39,000 women were also found during that period (2016-20)," said Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order), Narsimha Komar.
He said as per the 'Crime in India' report published by NCRB, 41,621 women went missing in Gujarat between 2016 and 2020, but the same report also says that 39,497 missing women have been traced by the police and reunited with their families in the same period.
"It shows that 94.90 per cent of women were already found," Komar told reporters in Gandhinagar.
Queried on the difference of 2,124 between the missing women and those who are traced, Komar said, as per the latest figures, only "1,000-plus" women are currently missing in the state.
The police officer said women leave their homes due to various reasons, such as domestic violence, stress, family disputes, mental illness, or elopement.
"As per the data of 2021 published recently by NCRB, more (number of) women than those who went missing were found during the year. As against 9,812 women who went missing, 10,608 were found in 2021. It happened because finding missing women is a continuous process for the police, and the women who went missing in previous years would be found in the subsequent years," said Komar.
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