By Malik Zahoor Mehdi

A disturbing pattern has begun to haunt Jammu and Kashmir. 

Reports of missing minor children, especially girls between the ages of 14 and 18, appear with troubling frequency. Parents wake up to empty rooms, unanswered phone calls, and long hours of panic. 

Police stations receive complaints, posters circulate on social media, and entire neighbourhoods join searches. 

Many children return home, but several families continue waiting.

This crisis reaches far beyond private grief. A missing child creates a wound that spreads through an entire community. 

Parents spend sleepless nights moving between police offices, relatives’ homes, hospitals, and crowded streets. Fear cripples daily life, trust weakens, and questions grow.

National data shows why this issue demands serious attention. 

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 83,350 children went missing in India during 2022. Girls accounted for more than 62,000 of those cases, nearly three-fourths of the total. Authorities recorded a 7.5 percent increase compared with the previous year. 

Recovery figures remain substantial, though thousands of children continued to remain untraced.

Recent figures point toward an even larger challenge. 

Analysis of NCRB 2023 data indicates that more than 91,000 children went missing during the year, with girls making up about 75 percent of cases. 

Teenagers between 16 and 18 emerged as the most vulnerable group. Tens of thousands remained untraced at the end of the reporting period.

Jammu and Kashmir may not produce numbers comparable to major metropolitan regions, though the emotional damage remains........

© Kashmir Observer