FOUR YEARS AGO, Maharashtra acquired a deeply troubling distinction. The state was listed by the National Crime Records Bureau as the worst affected in the country in terms of missing women and children. In 2022 alone, 66,467 persons were reported missing, including 5,398 children. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis decided to treat the issue as a priority and appointed additional director general of police Aswati Dorje to lead a coordinated operation focused specifically on tracing missing women and children.
In an interaction with THE WEEK, Dorje, daughter of legendary filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, said her campaign was part of Operation Muskan, a national initiative to trace missing children. “Since I joined, I made it a point to conduct the operation intensively for at least one month every year and then follow it up regularly. If we find children working in a brick kiln or a roadside dhaba, we immediately check who the child belongs to and whether he or she has been trafficked. Once we locate the family, the child is reunited as per the orders of the Child Welfare Committee,” she said. To make the effort more effective, Dorje has created a network of specialised units across Maharashtra. Today, 49 units deal exclusively with cases of missing women and children. “One officer in every police station is assigned specifically to handle missing cases,” she explained.
According to Dorje, the first 48 hours after a complaint is registered are crucial. Police teams are now trained not only to respond quickly but also to deal with children sensitively once they are traced. “You must understand where the child went and why. If the reason remains unaddressed, there is a strong possibility that the child may go missing again,” she said.
Some children run away because they come from deeply dysfunctional families. Others feel neglected or lonely. In some cases, children are exploited at home and prefer not to return. “In such cases, we submit a report to the Child Welfare Committee explaining why the child should be placed in a child care institution or with a close relative. If there is an exploitative situation at home, it is better to place the child in a child care institution,” she said.
In recent years, the police have noticed a worrying new trend. Increasingly, children are going missing because of online relationships. “Many children now befriend people online. These strangers start praising them, grooming them and eventually luring them away from home,” Dorje said.
She recalled a case in which the police rescued a teenage girl from a railway platform while she was asking strangers for help to travel to Rajasthan. She had befriended a man online who had persuaded her to run away. “Her father is a farmer. She ran away with Rs50,000 that her father had received after selling his soybean crop. When we spoke to her, she broke down. We told her parents not to scold her,” Dorje said.
The problem, she said, has worsened since the Covid pandemic. The widespread use of smartphones has made children more vulnerable to online manipulation. Many of those who run away eventually end up working as cheap labour, particularly in the catering industry.
Fadnavis, commenting on the work of Dorje and her team, informed the state legislature that the unit’s efforts had led to a 10 per cent increase in the number of missing women and girls being reunited with their families over the past year. “In the first year, around 55–60 per cent of missing women were traced. By the end of the third year, this figure rose to nearly 90 per cent. The government will not stop this operation until all missing women are found.” He said the situation had improved significantly in the case of missing children as well. “We have now reached a stage where 96–97 per cent of missing children are being traced and reunited with their families.”
The police have also begun to study the reasons behind missing women more carefully. According to Dorje, the cases broadly fall into two categories: “In more prosperous areas, the number of missing women below 40 is higher. In rural areas, the number is higher among women above 40,” she said. When she asked senior police officers across districts about the trend, she was told that many women above 40 leave home to work as labourers in neighbouring states such as Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. “Some of them find better opportunities and then do not want to return,” she said.
In the case of women below 40, the reasons are often domestic disputes, family pressure or emotional stress. Some leave home because they are unable to cope with household problems, while others leave due to relationships. “If these women do not want to return, we do not force them. We simply ask them to give a written statement in court that they are staying on their own so that we can close the case,” Dorje said.
There are also cases where minor couples run away together, particularly in rural areas. Many of them return only after they turn 18, when they are legally eligible to marry.
An important part of Dorje’s campaign involves what the police call ‘police didis’—women constables who visit schools regularly to counsel children and raise awareness. They speak to students about online safety, trafficking and the risks of running away. She narrated the story of a woman constable in Nagpur who had a vast slum area as part of her beat. “She started karate classes for children and also arranged textbooks for those who wanted to study. After that, the number of children going missing from that area dropped dramatically,” Dorje said.
Behind the statistics, there is a sustained and often quiet effort by hundreds of police officers across Maharashtra. The numbers remain alarming, but the effort to bring missing children and women back home is now more organised, more systematic and, in many cases, more successful than before.