Every day, one person goes missing in Dakshina Kannada

MANGALURU: The reasons are many: from love affair to academic pressure, old age to fraud, one person goes missing in Dakshina Kannada every day.
In 2017, in Mangaluru city limits alone, 226 people have gone missing, of who 195 have been traced . Till September this year, 157 people went missing and only 98 were traced. In DK district police limits, 126 people went missing, of who eight remain untraced.This year (till August 2018), 101 people have gone missing, including seven children, and among them, 86 people were traced.

A senior police official says there are plenty of reason s for people going missing, including teenagers. Mostly children go missing but are traced. They leave home due to study pressure, abusive parents and even for petty reasons. "There are chances that these runaway kids can fall prey to human traffickers," says a police official. Police maintain a separate record of missing children from 0-18 years.
Among those aged above 18, the reasons for going missing can be love affairs, where girls and boys elope fro m home. Married men and women may also be included in this category. Some go missing all of a sudden after they fail to repay debts. "Some people who accumulate a lot of debt or commit fraud, and who are unable to repay money, choose to run away without the family being aware of it, and settle down somewhere else," adds an official.
The re are others who run away from home in order to find greener pastures, mostly those from economically poor backgrounds. One reason aged people go missing is health-related issues and mental illness. Some missing cases could also be murders. "In DK, most of the missing persons are traced," says another senior official.