All cases of missing persons and children of disaster to be reviewed

DEHRADUN: The harrowing incident of ill-treatment and rape of a 10-year old girl who went missing after the last year’s natural disaster in the state has raised serious questions about such anonymous children who may have gone missing at that time.
The incident has brought forward questions about the children tracking system of the district administration post 2013’s Kedarnath disaster.The district administration of Rudraprayag is re-investigating the entire list of missing persons including children whom police declared dead in the disaster.
Raghav Langhar district magistrate of Rudraprayag said, “I am completely astonished by the incident of the missing girl, from Kedarnath site during disaster, traced at Chamba few days ago. It is for the first time that such a case has come up after the disaster. I am getting the entire case verified. This incident has also propelled me to recheck and review the list of 3,912 people including 146 children below the age of 18 who had gone missing from Rudraprayag, the worst affected area during the disaster. Out of this 3,680 were declared dead by the police. It will be seen whether the name of this girl is included in the list or not. “
The whole incident has been an eye-opener for the district administration, which has decided to re-investigate all such related cases.
“There can be no other effective tracking mechanism than to take help of police in such matters. The district administration too got FIRs registered in all the missing cases. Around 72 inspectors were deputed to investigate the whereabouts of the missing persons. It was just few months ago, the police submitted a final report in the court confirming death of all 3,680 missing investigated so far including children. The remaining 232 cases are still under investigation,” he said.