The reason is simple, say police officers: given that a missing child, by definition, is one who could move or be moved from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, city to city, state to state, any effort to track her needs coordination at all levels. In other words, between police stations and, in turn, between states. Such a mechanism just doesn’t exist. This was exactly what the Supreme Court had called for. But more of that later.

Nothing captures the apathy to the problem better than the fact that nobody in the Government even knows how large the problem is.

Yes, there are figures with the police — some states don’t even have that — but these, officials themselves admit, barely tell the story.

Consider the following:

• The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), the nation’s central crime research organization, tabulates only cases of kidnapped children which it puts at 3196 for the year 2005. Its website posts a list and pictures of 198 cases of missing persons, of which the number of children below 18 is only 66. Given that Nithari alone yielded a figure of at least 30 missing children, this shows how way off the NCRB data is.

• So it’s not a surprise that even Minister of Child and Women Welfare Renuka Chowdhary rubbishes these figures. “My feedback is that the figure of missing children runs into tens of thousands each year. I have asked all state governments to supply figures.” What she doesn’t say is that she gave them two weeks but not one state has replied. What she underlines, however, is the alarm: “I am apprehensive that another Nithari will happen if something is not done urgently.”

... contd.