Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: Goa Police has sought to correct the interpretation of data on missing children in the state, stating that adding year-wise figures has created an inflated picture of the number of children who remain untraced.
The police clarification comes after recent media reports cited figures on missing, untraced, kidnapped and abducted children. According to the police, annual figures showing children who were untraced at a particular point cannot be treated as separate groups because many of those children were subsequently located.
Goa Police said the cumulative number of untraced children was 32 at the end of 2016, including cases carried forward from previous years. Some of these cases dated back several decades, including one from 1953.
The department said the pending balance is updated every year as children are traced. As a result, adding the pending figure for each individual year can lead to the same child being counted more than once.
Between 2016 and 2024, 183 children were reported missing, while 186 were traced. The police said the tracing figure also included children whose cases had remained pending from earlier years.
The cumulative pending figure consequently fell from 31 at the beginning of 2016 to 28 by the end of 2024.
The police cited year-wise figures to explain the distinction. In 2016, 26 children were reported missing and 25 were traced. In 2020, there were 15 fresh missing reports against 22 tracing cases, while in 2024, 27 children were reported missing and 30 were traced.
Goa Police also questioned the interpretation of a figure of 304 children described as non-traced. The number was calculated by adding annual figures of 41, 47, 68, 61 and 87 for the years 2020 to 2024.
According to the police, such an approach does not establish that 304 different children remained missing at the end of 2024. Children appearing in an annual pending list may have been traced in a subsequent year, resulting in duplication when the figures are simply added together.
The department has also flagged an inconsistency concerning the reported total of 591 kidnapping and abduction cases between 2020 and 2024. Goa Police noted that the annual figures cited ranged from 35 cases in 2020 to 80 in 2024, and said the overall calculation therefore requires clarification.
The police said the larger issue was not the recording of missing-child cases but the manner in which year-wise data was aggregated.
Goa Police reiterated that every missing-child case is pursued and that efforts continue to locate children involved in both recent and long-pending cases.
The department has urged media organisations to consider the cumulative pending position, along with subsequent tracing and recovery, before presenting annual figures as the number of children currently untraced.
