Minors in love go missing

Minors in love go missing
Preetu Nair, TNN

PANAJI: In December 2008, six persons were reported missing in the capital city. Of these, three were minor girls and police investigations
revealed they had eloped with their respective lovers.

The Panaji police traced two of them and lodged cases of kidnapping against the boyfriends for wrongful confinement of the minors.

In a state where 780 people went missing in 2008, and where on an average over 65 missing complaints were lodged in police stations across the state every month, a third of those missing were youth.

Data available with the Goa police from 2005 to October 2008 shows that more girls than boys (below 18 years) are reported missing.

Arun Pandey of Arz, an NGO said, "A majority of the minors run away due to a conflict in the family or a love affair objected to by family members."

The police confirm this. "The moment a minor girl goes missing, we try to find out if she was 'friendly' with any male. In a majority of cases, we found that the girl was friendly and around the same time when the girl had gone missing, her friend also went missing. Our efforts are then to trace either of them. Once the girl is traced, a majority of parents insist on registering a case of kidnapping, while some try to hush up the matter," said SP (South) Allen D'Sa.

Between 2005 and October 2008, data for which is available with the police, about 500 minor girls went missing. Of these 414 were traced and in a majority of the cases it was established that they had eloped with their boyfriends, admit police sources.

16 Jan 2009, The Times of India, Goa edition