April 12: A total of 165 people among those who ventured out into India for labour from three districts Accham, Kanchanpur and Doti have gone missing.

According to a study conducted by the NIDS Nepal, a non-government organisation, the people who left homes for manual jobs in neighbouring India many years ago have neither returned homes nor contacted the families.

The figure is from only three districts and the number could be thousands if the study covered the other remaining seven districts, said NIDS Nepal Doti chief Prakash Madai. The study mainly focused on rural areas of the districts where the departure of people is high.

The families often do not report about the disappearance of the disappeared to the local administration affecting the collection of their exact details, he said. Each year, a large number of the working-class people departed for India in search of jobs. Doti Chief District Officer Yadav Subedi said they were collecting information about the issue in detail. “We will try our best to collect the personal details of the missing people and find out causes of their disappearance.”

Shikhar municipality-9 ward char Khadak Bahadur Shahi said some people from his locality have not come in contact with their families since they left homes a long time. Families of them are worried and they frequently visited him, seeking help to find out the whereabouts of their missing members.

District Police Office spokesperson Lal Bahadur Dhami said some families have lodged complaints at the Office, seeking help to search for the missing members. But lack of complete and authentic information about them makes the search efforts difficult and sometimes impossible.

Thagga Bista of Jorayal rural municipality is not hopeful about the return of her missing husband. “I do not think my husband who has lost contact with the family since the past 30 years, would come back.” 

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