Shillong, Oct 5: Eighty-four children went missing in Meghalaya in 2023, according to the latest report from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
The 84 comprised 22 boys and 62 girls. There were also two boys and eight girls still missing from previous years, bringing the total missing in 2023 to 94. Kidnapping cases represented 36.13 per cent of the 512 crimes committed against children in the state that year.
Child safety has come to the fore and approached panic levels due to several incidents of late.
A 4-year-old girl went missing from her home in Nongrah here last month and was found dead a few days later.
Two minors were also allegedly accosted in the city – one robbed and one stabbed with a needle – but both of these cases turned out to be false.
In actual missing persons cases, a 6-year-old girl from Upper Rajasimla village in North Garo Hills went missing in July while her parents were at work on an MGNREGA project.
Going back further, two 11-year-old boys disappeared from Nongstoin in July 2024 and a 7-year-old boy from Jongchipara, West Garo Hills, was reported missing in October 2023.
Nationally, a total of 1,77,335 cases of crimes against children were registered in 2023, showing an increase of 9.2 per cent over 2022, according to the NCRB report.
The data compiled by the NCRB showed that the crime rate in 2023 stood at 39.9 per one lakh child population in comparison to 36.6 in 2022. Meghalaya’s rate is 37.1 per one lakh child population. This is higher than all North East states apart from Assam (84.2) and Sikkim (67.5). Assam’s is the highest rate per one lakh in any state in the country.
Nearly 200 of Meghalaya’s registered crimes against children were related to kidnapping.
In percentage terms, major crime heads under “Crime Against Children” in 2023 were “Kidnapping and Abduction of Children” (79,884 cases, 45 percent) and “Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act” (67,694 cases, 38.2 per cent).
