Over 88 people have been reported missing in a year from Maharashtra's temple town of Shirdi, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court has noted and asked the police to probe the possibility of trafficking or an organ racket behind their disappearance.
A division bench of Justices T V Nalawade and S M Gavanhe made the observations last month while hearing a 2018 criminal petition filed by one Manoj Kumar, whose wife had gone missing from Shirdi, around 240km from here, in 2017.
"More than 88 people were reported missing from Shirdi in one year. In most of these cases, people had come to Shirdi for darshan at the (Saibaba) temple," the court observed.
Shirdi in Ahmednagar district houses the famous temple dedicated to Saibaba, a renowned saint revered by people across communities. The shrine, one of the richest in the country, attracts thousands of people from all over India and also abroad every day.
A few of the missing persons were traced, but the remaining, mostly women, have not been found, the bench said.
"When a poor person goes missing, the relatives are helpless. Most of them do not approach the police and rarely such cases come up to this court.
"Thus, there is a possibility that more than 88 people shown on record have gone missing," the judges said.
The court suggested the possibility of human trafficking or an organ racket behind such incidents.
"Due to such possibility, this court expects the superintendent of police, Ahmednagar, to form a special unit for investigation and are expected to trace and take action against persons involved in trafficking or transplant of human organs," the court said.