Telangana HC directs DGP to submit report on missing cases

HYDERABAD: Taking serious note of the Hyderabad Police's failure to find a boy who went missing from the city six years ago, the Telangana High Court on Thursday questioned the police machinery on how they failed to trace a missing person's whereabouts despite claiming to have the latest technology to trace a missing person within 24 hours.

A division bench of Justice Shameem Akther and Justice E.V. Venugopal directed Telangana DGP M. Mahender Reddy to provide a detailed report on the number of missing cases registered so far, as well as how many were traced and how many remained untraced.

The bench was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by N. Sriramulu, who stated that his brother went missing on April 3, 2006, and that he has no idea whether he is alive or not. Sriramulu claimed in his petition that the Uppal police authorities were not acting on his complaint about his missing brother. The court had ordered the police to find the missing boy and submit a compliance report.

However, the police had not yet filed a compliance report and had closed the case as unsolved. Dissatisfied with the police response, Sriramulu had filed another petition in February 2022. The court has ordered a status report from the police commissioner. However, they filed a counter claiming that they were unable to trace out the boy.

During the hearing on the habeas corpus petition on Thursday, the division bench pulled up the police for failing to conduct proper investigations in missing persons cases.

The bench ordered the police to submit details of unidentified missing persons cases as soon as the courts reopen after the Dussehra holidays.