On the eve of International Women’s day, the BJP government in Gujarat admitted that 14,004 women from the state were reported missing during the last two years — of these, about 76 per cent were found during the same period.

This information was furnished in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly by Minister of State for Home Pradeepsinh Jadeja on Wednesday.

The minister said that while 10,720 women were found during this time, the whereabouts of the remaining women were still not known.

The urban conglomerates of Ahmedabad and Surat recorded maximum cases of missing women during this time-period, with 2,905 women from Ahmedabad and 2,626 women from Surat reported missing.

Besides women, over 4,900 children also were reported missing during these two years.

The Minister said that of these missing children, the number of those who faced failure in their examination or had fallen in love was on the higher side.

The number of children leaving their house due to a love angle is higher in the age group of 15 years to 18 years, especially among female children, the minister said.

The opposition did not miss a chance to hit at the government on this and alleged that the BJP government was not at all serious regarding the missing children.

Leader of Opposition Paresh Dhanani, MLA from Amreli, said the government provided false data in the House by giving two different figures to two different questions with same purpose raised regarding the missing children.

The data comes a day after the Vijay Rupani government announced that it would be celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8 by welcoming birth of girl child throughout the state by way of giving flowers, sweets and silver coins of Goddess Laxmi and Saraswati.

According to the government, this move was to send out a positive message regarding birth of a girl child, in the wake of alarming figures released by the Registrar General of India regarding the sex ratio at birth in Gujarat that had reduced to 848 in 2016 — down from 886 in 2001.

The Chief Minister, his deputy, collectors, DDOs and legislators would visit homes of families which would record birth of a girl child and present Mamata Kit along with other gifts.