Gujarat riots: Missing persons to be declared dead

With the expiry of the seven years' stipulated time, authorities are set to declare 228 missing in the 2002 post-Godhra riots as dead.

The move would take the death toll in the communal carnage to 1,180 from 952.

"We have prepared a list of missing people and sent it to the revenue department, which would declare the missing persons as dead," additional chief secretary(Home) Balwant Singh said.

The state revenue department would send the details to the district collectorates for the subsequent process.

Ahmedabad collector Harit Shukla said the final list of missing people from the police is awaited.

"Once we have the list, we will start the process of declaring them as dead, inform the civic authorities to prepare their death certificate and subsequently, compensation claims will be processed," he added.

In the aftermath of large scale communal carnage, 413 people had disappeared of which 185 people were found while 228 are missing. The 228 missing people also includes 24 children and 27 women.

"As per law, we will have to revise the final figure of 2002 riots as missing persons are presumed as dead after seven years," a senior official said.

The official said that the process in this regard will be completed in the first week of March as most of the people went missing from February 27 to March 5, 2002.