Uttarakhand Government missing persons’ cell has revealed that 5,466 persons are missing since cloudburst and resulting flood in three rivers including Mandakini in Kedarnath, Alaknanda in Badrinath and Bhagirathi in Gangotri on June 16-17.
Although the cell in-charge, Secretary Ajay Kumar Pradyot claimed that 152 children belonging to Uttarakhand are missing, Additional Director School Education NK Bahuguna claims that 195 children are missing from the State since disaster. It has raised question mark over the authenticity of figures provided by the State Government on Tuesday.
On July 11, missing persons figure was 5,773 including UP (2,098), MP (1,052), Uttarakhand (924), Rajasthan (683), Maharashtra (207), Delhi (213), Gujarat (126), Haryana (113), AP (81), Bihar (63), Punjab (51) and others (162). On July 22 the figure came down to 5,428.
To reach the figure the Government took help from the mobile phone service providers and managed to zero unique number of the missing person. On July 22 the figure were 5,428 but 38 new names from Uttarakhand were added to the list on Tuesday.
As per details UP (1925), Rajasthan (505), MP (1032), Maharashtra (217), Gujarat (126), Haryana (113), Andhra Pradesh 87, West Bengal (35), Bihar (63), Jharkhand (38), Orissa (31), Chhatishgarh (27), Punjab (51), Tamilnadu (14), Karnataka (14), J& K (03), Puduchery (01) and Assam (01).
Talking to the media, Pradyot said that 5,466 persons including 1,919 women, 451 children and 934 persons from Uttarakhand are missing since cloudburst took place, in which 91 persons belong to Nepal.
“As per the mobile companies 113 foreign numbers mobile were functional in Kedarnath between June 16-19 but we have not received any communiqué from any country except Nepal so far,” he said. Meanwhile, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Haryana have declared their missing number i.e. 63, 14 and 113 persons respectively.