Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 19: While Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today confirmed the deaths of 280 persons in worst ever floods and rains in Jammu and Kashmir, Jammu based J&K Connect Centre has so far recorded complaints of 347 missing persons including 341 from Kashmir, mostly Srinagar, who were not traced by their relatives.
The Connect Centre has succeeded in rescuing nine persons of Jammu from Srinagar and restored them to their families yesterday.
Nodal Officer of J&K Connect Centre based at Jammu, Amit Sharma (Special Secretary Animal Husbandry Department) told the Excelsior that till 4 pm today the Connect Centre has recorded missing complaints of 347 persons including 341 from Kashmir and 6 from Jammu.
“We are recording each and every call and compiling data of missing persons. The civilians, who are traced with our efforts or otherwise, are being marked to ensure that there was no exaggeration of figures. So far, we have reports of 347 persons missing in the floods,’’ Sharma said, adding they were reverting the calls made by the civilians to cross check missing and recovery of civilians.
He said the Connect Centre with its efforts had traced 9 persons of Jammu trapped in Srinagar and restored them to their families here.
“We have received 282 calls from various parts of the country with people reporting particulars of their kin missing in the floods,’’ Sharma said.
The State Government had on Tuesday setup a 24×7 dedicated helpline centre in order to trace people who went missing after the floods hit the State.
The helpline through J&K Connect Centre has been established at the ground floor of the Office Complex of Divisional Commissioner at Rail Head Complex here.
The data of missing persons is shared with all Police Chiefs and District Magistrates on the districts in J&K, besides Army and NDRF in a bid to reach out to them, Sharma said.
“We are even calling for the record of about 2,000 missing persons, for which calls were received by previous helpline centre setup at Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Development Corporation (JKTDC),” he said.
The Centre has come up on the advice of Prime Minister’s office on the pattern adopted by Uttarakhand Government during the Kedarnath tragedy in June last year.
A Secretary level officer of Uttarakhand Government had come here on the direction’s PMO to facilitate setting up of the centre for missing persons.
“The main purpose of this J&K Connect Centre is to help in finding people who went missing after the floods,” Sharma said. A team of officers and staff is providing the helpline services round-the-clock.
A Facebook page with the domain name “facebook.Com/operationconnectjk” has also been created for the purpose.
Apart from this, four 24×7 dedicated telephone helpline numbers have been started with the numbers 18001807049 (toll-free), 18001807050 (toll-free) 0191-2471522 and 0191-2471922, he added.
The experiment has proved successful as the Connect Centre has succeeded in getting telephone numbers and last location of missing persons, which would help in tracing the missing people.
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