93,940 Women and Girls Missing in Maharashtra in 2 Years; 20 Minor Girls Missing in Pune in 15 Days, Says MP Medha Kulkarni
New Delhi/Pune, 24th March 2026: Sounding a strong alarm over the rising number of missing women and minor girls in Maharashtra, Rajya Sabha MP Prof Dr Medha Kulkarni on Tuesday raised the issue in Parliament, warning of a possible link to organised human trafficking networks and calling for urgent, decisive action.
Raising the matter during Zero Hour, Kulkarni said the scale of the problem was “deeply disturbing” and required immediate intervention to ensure the safety of women and minors across the state.
Citing data from the state home department, she said that 93,940 women and girls went missing in Maharashtra during 2024 and 2025, including more than 23,000 minor girls. “On average, 132 women are going missing every day, which is extremely alarming,” she said.
Kulkarni pointed out that major urban centres such as Mumbai, Raigad, Nagpur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Navi Mumbai, and Pune have reported a significant number of such cases. In Pune alone, 20 minor girls aged between 13 and 17 have gone missing in the past 15 days, she added.
She warned that several of these cases could be linked to organised human trafficking rackets. “There are instances of abduction, exploitation through fake relationships, and misuse of social media platforms to lure victims,” she said, underlining the evolving nature of such crimes.
Expressing concern over the pace of the investigation, Kulkarni said a large number of cases remain unresolved. Of the 45,000 cases reported in 2024, nearly 15,000 are still untraced even after two years. Similarly, out of 48,000 cases in 2025, around 13,000 women have not yet been located. “This means nearly 28,000 women and girls are still missing over the last two years,” she said.
Questioning the fate of the missing victims, she asked whether they had been trafficked, sold abroad, or subjected to abuse and violence.
Calling for urgent reforms, Kulkarni proposed strengthening investigation systems to ensure swift action during the critical ‘golden hours’, enhancing mobile tracking capabilities, and expanding CCTV surveillance across public spaces such as bus stands, railway stations, and major junctions with real-time monitoring.
She also demanded stricter action against forced religious conversion and fraudulent marriages, tighter regulation of social media usage among minors, and mandatory identity verification for travel and hotel stays. Strengthening digital payment-linked identification systems at toll plazas was also suggested.
Kulkarni urged the government to treat the issue with utmost priority and implement robust measures to curb the menace, stressing that the safety and security of women and minor girls must be ensured without delay.
