Compilation of the complaints have, however, helped the police zero in on the fact that most of the missing girls were in the age group of 8 to 15 and they were either illiterate or school dropouts, employed by agencies to work as domestic help.

Our investigations revealed that Poonam was sent to New Delhi along with two other girls — Sangeeta and Ashok, by Sony, a resident of Piskanagri village (Ranchi district). She liasoned with a domestic help placement agency in the national capital. Though Sangeeta and Ashok returned home a few months later, Poonam is still untraceable. “We lost touch with her,” said Sangeeita when we contacted her. Though we could not contact Sony, she has apparently told the missing girl’s parents that the New Delhi place ment agency was unreachable on the numbers with her.

Suresh Tiwari,a lecturer at Sanjay Gandhi College has written in his thesis on “Trafficking of Adivasi Girls in Jharkhand” — “Most agencies lured the parents by promising them a party of their children’s wages. But in quite a few cases they failed to keep track of the girls, resulting in the rise of missing children.”

It’s not that all employers are insensitive. 16-year-old Salkhi’s employers in the posh Bengali Market area of New Delhi lodged a case of missing at the local Tilak Nagar police station. The police advertised for her in the missing columns of local Hindi dailies in Ranchi as well as New Delhi. SH Lakra, the Additional Superintendent of Police (CBI), who was also working on this case along with the local police said: “She was friendly with a boy but there are are other suspects as well.” The Delhi Police is yet to make a breakthrough.