Ludhiana Missing Girls Mystery: Women Commission Seeks Police Report as Cases Alarm Punjab

Ludhiana missing girls: Punjab State Women Commission has taken suo motu cognisance of reports of nine girls missing in Ludhiana, seeking a detailed investigation report from the city police by June 8

North Desk Correspondent

Chandigarh, June 5

Following media reports about nine girls going missing within 48 hours in Ludhiana, the Punjab State Women Commission has taken suo motu cognisance, issuing a formal notice to the city’s Commissioner of Police and seeking a detailed investigation report by June 8.

Commission Chairperson Raj Lalli Gill issued the notice on Thursday, invoking Section 12 of the Punjab State Commission for Women Act, 2001, which empowers the panel to intervene in matters concerning violations of women’s rights, safety, and dignity. The notice has been directed to Ludhiana Commissioner of Police Swapan Sharma.

“The Commission views such matters with great seriousness and is committed to ensuring the protection of rights, respect, and dignity of women in Punjab,” the notice stated, asking the police to submit the action taken and investigation progress report via email by June 8.

Police Push Back on Viral Claims

Even as the Commission acted on the reports of Ludhiana missing girls, Ludhiana’s Commissionerate Police sought to cool public alarm. In a video posted on its official Facebook page, the police had said that viral posts claiming girl children were going missing en masse in the city were misleading. The force said the matter was being verified and investigated, and disclosed that three girl children from Uttar Pradesh had already been traced by Police Station Jamalpur and were being reunited with their families. Citizens were asked not to share unverified information and to rely only on official updates.

The clarification, however, left open questions about the remaining cases still under investigation.

Ludhiana missing girls: How the Cases Unfolded

The alarm was triggered by a clustering of missing person cases from different parts of Ludhiana reported over several days, which were aggregated and circulated widely on media and social media as a single alarming episode.

Media including Hindustan Times reported on June 1 that five more girls, including four minors, had been reported missing from different parts of the city, with police registering three fresh FIRs — a day after three minor girls were reported missing in separate incidents.

The case of 18-year-old 

The Ludhiana missing girls cases, when examined individually, reveal distinct circumstances.

In the first case, an 18-year-old from Mohalla Peeru Banda in the Salem Tabri area went missing on April 27 after leaving home saying she was going to seek school admission. Her father later suspected the involvement of a local resident named Sunil Sahni, who had also disappeared around the same time.

The father alleged that police dragged their feet because his daughter was an adult, telling him she may have married someone. An FIR was registered only after he escalated the matter to the ADCP.

In the second case, a 16-year-old domestic worker from Rajguru Nagar went missing on May 24. Her mother told police she had returned from work around 7 pm, parked her bicycle outside Laxmi Narayan Mandir in J-Block, and was not seen thereafter. CCTV footage reportedly showed her walking away alone. Sarabha Nagar police registered a case against unidentified persons.

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3 girls from a family

The third FIR covered three girls from the same family — a 16-year-old from Kullewal and her two cousins aged 14 and 15 — who went missing on May 27. The teenager later contacted her family from an unknown number, saying she was in Ambala with a youth known to the family.

Her family alleged the youth had taken her away with intent to marry. Her two cousins, who had separately boarded a train to their native village in Uttar Pradesh, subsequently contacted their families and were traced.

A Pattern Beneath the Panic

Police noted that the missing girls are all daughters of migrant workers — a detail that adds a layer of vulnerability to the picture. Families from Uttar Pradesh and other states, without strong local networks, may face greater difficulty navigating the system when a child goes missing.

The cases also exposed a recurring complaint against police: the tendency to initially treat missing adult women as potential elopement cases, delaying the registration of FIRs and slowing down the early hours of investigation that are often most critical.

With the Women Commission’s notice now on record and a deadline of June 8 set for a police response, the pressure on Ludhiana’s law enforcement to account for each of these cases has formally escalated.

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