Bhopal, July 17, 2013: Madhya Pradesh government on Monday told the high court that 591 out of 5,079 pilgrims were missing in last month’s devastating floods in Uttarakhand.

No person is missing from Ashok Nagar and Rajgarh districts, the state informed. The state furnished details about missing people as per information available with it on July 4, 2013.

Taking steps to search for the missing people, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and chief secretary R Parasuram during their visit to Dehradun ( Uttarakhand) on June 30, 2013, handed over details of missing people to the Uttarkhand government with request for prompt action to trace them.

The chief minister’s voice messages in this connection are being continuously sent to people across the state including villagers/farmers, panchayats’ surpanch and secretary and the same has been communicated to over 9,00,000 people.

The inspector general of police is deputed in Uttarakhand for identification of missing people, who is coordinating with the authorities there to take photographs, gathering details of DNA samples for identification of dead people and evidences, additional advocate general PK Kaurav said.

The state chief secretary, by way of video conference, has given instructions to all the divisional commissioners, inspector generals of police, district collectors and superintendent of police in this regard.

The Madhya Pradesh Help Centre established in Uttarakhand is coordinating and collecting information about missing people from various police stations of Uttarakhand including reports registered by individual families of their missing members.

Assistant solicitor general RS Siddiqui appearing for the Union government sought some time from the court to submit more details of rescue and relief measures taken by the Centre in Uttarakhand and the action of the national disaster management authority.

A division bench comprising acting chief justice KK Lahoti and justice S Kakade granted more time to the Union government to submit the details on relief and rescue measures. HC also permitted the state to file further details about missing people on July 24.

Fumed over state commerce and industry minister Kailash Vijavargiya’s “derogatory” remark on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, scores of Congress workers burnt an effigy of Vijayvargiya at Barwani on Monday. They demanded an immediate apology from him.

Source: Hindustan Times, DT. July 17, 2013.