13.13 lakh girls, women went missing between 2019 and 2021: Govt data

New Delhi, Jul 30 (PTI) More than 13.13 lakh girls and women went missing in the country in the three years between 2019 and 2021, with Madhya Pradesh accounting for the highest at nearly two lakhs, closely followed by West Bengal.

According to the Union Home Ministry data, tabled in Parliament last week, 10,61,648 women above 18 years and 2,51,430 girls below that age went missing between 2019 and 2021 across the country.

The data was compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

In Madhya Pradesh, 1,60,180 women and 38,234 girls went missing between 2019 and 2021, according to the data provided to Parliament.

A total of 1,56,905 women and 36,606 girls went missing from West Bengal in the same period. In Maharashtra, 1,78,400 women and 13,033 girls went missing in the said period.

In Odisha, 70,222 women and 16,649 girls went missing in the three years while 49,116 women and 10,817 girls went missing from Chhattisgarh in the said period.

Among the Union Territories, Delhi recorded the highest number of missing girls and women.

In the national capital, 61,054 women and 22,919 girls went missing between 2019 and 2021 while in Jammu and Kashmir, 8,617 women and 1,148 girls went missing in the said period.

The government also informed Parliament that it has taken a number of initiatives for the safety of women across the country, which include the enactment of The Criminal Law (Amendment), Act, 2013, for effective deterrence against sexual offences.

Further, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018, was enacted to prescribe even more stringent penal provisions, including death penalty, for the rape of girls below the age of 12 years.

The Act also mandates completion of investigation and filing of charge sheets in rape cases in two months and trials to be completed in another two months.

The government has launched the Emergency Response Support System which provides a pan-India, single internationally recognized number (112) based system for all emergencies, with computer-aided dispatch of field resources to the location of distress.

Using technology to aid smart policing and safety management, Safe City Projects have been sanctioned in the first phase in eight cities — Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow and Mumbai.

The home ministry launched a cybercrime reporting portal on September 20, 2018, for citizens to report obscene content.

The home ministry also launched the National Database on Sexual Offenders on September 20, 2018, to facilitate the investigation and tracking of sexual offenders across the country by law enforcement agencies.