Members of Centre for World Solidarity in Ranchi on Wednesday. (Hardeep Singh)

Ranchi, Dec. 15: Jagni Devi’s tired eyes say it all.

The 40-year-old resident of the non-descript Silda village in Khunti district has not seen her daughter, Seema, for seven long years. The girl went missing when she was just 12 and Jagni does not even know where she has gone.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as the woman narrated her ordeal. “Kaun meri beti ko le gaya, kuch pata nahi hain. (I don’t know who took away my daughter). We had approached the local police, but in vain,” Jagni said.

Jagni is not alone. Many others like Panno Devi, Kiran Devi and Soni Devi of Jagganathpur, and Champa Devi of Hatia Harijan Basti mirror her plight. Their daughters have been missing for 10 years.

Today, these hapless parents turned up at a daylong consultation meeting and discussion on missing girls of Jharkhand organised by the Centre For Solidarity in association with five NGOs — ASHA, Ranchi; Darpan, Hazaribagh; Lok Swar, Khunti; Anupam Mahila Chetna Samiti, Hazaribagh; and the wing of Hazaribagh-based Darpan — at a Ranchi hotel.

Representatives of different NGOs and advocates of Jharkhand High Court and civil courts, who were present at the meeting, suggested various remedies to trace the missing girls.

“Organisations working to trace the girls should first lodge FIRs, giving all details. If no action is taken, the cases should be referred to the woman police station and a copy handed over to the DC and the SP,” said Vinod Kumar, an advocate. He added that even then if no solution was found, the NGOs should approach the chief judicial magistrate or file a PIL in the high court.

Santosh Tripathy, a civil court advocate, said missing cases should be lodged with Jharkhand State Legal Services Authority. Besides, stress was also laid on generating awareness at the village level through padyatras, posters and banners.

A member of Association for Social and Human Awareness (ASHA), Ajay Kumar, said recently they had compiled the data of 100 missing girls covering 50 villages of districts like Ramgarh, Khunti, West Singhbhum and Hazaribagh.

“We have found that these girls have been taken to Delhi, Calcutta, Punjab, Haryana and Kashmir. I am going to file a PIL for 40 missing cases,” he added.