130 Women Go Missing Every Day In Madhya Pradesh, Reveals Data

Nearly 130 women and girls go missing every single day in Madhya Pradesh. That staggering average has emerged from official data tabled in the Assembly after Congress MLA Vikrant Bhuria raised the issue. 

In a written reply Chief Minister Mohan Yadav confirmed that between 2020 and January 28, 2026, a total of 2,74,311 women and girls were reported missing across the state.

Break it down further and the picture turns even more alarming: roughly 45,000 missing every year, around 3,700 every month, and about 130 disappearances every day for six consecutive years.

While the government stated that 2,35,977 have been traced, a massive 68,334 women and girls remain untraced. That means tens of thousands of families are still waiting, searching, and hoping.

The yearly pattern shows no meaningful decline. Over 30,000 women went missing in 2020. The number surged past 39,000 in 2021. In 2023, it crossed 40,000 again. Even in 2025, more than 31,000 cases were registered. In just the first few weeks of 2026, over 1,000 women were already reported missing.

Major cities such as Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Ujjain consistently record high numbers, but several tribal and border districts also show troubling gaps between reported and traced cases. The figures have raised serious concerns about trafficking networks, forced marriages, exploitation and systemic weaknesses in tracking mechanisms.

Speaking to NDTV, MLA Vikrant Bhuria drew a sharp comparison, calling it "a humanitarian crisis comparable in scale to international exploitation scandals like the Epstein files." 

He said,"When tens of thousands of women are untraceable, this is not just a law and order issue. This is a structural failure. We cannot treat it as routine missing reports. This demands the highest level of accountability and transparency."

The government response in the Assembly confirmed the numbers but did not announce any new time-bound strategy to deal with the backlog of untraced cases. 

Officials pointed to rescue drives and recovery operations, but critics argue that the magnitude of the crisis calls for deeper intervention.

Behind every statistic is a story of fear, unanswered calls, and families left in limbo. 

With nearly 130 women disappearing daily, Madhya Pradesh faces a grim reality of "Lapata Ladies".