LUCKNOW, Feb. 18 -- As the DGP headquarters scrambles to refresh investigations of missing persons across the state after the Lucknow high court took cognizance of the issue, spotlight is back on three such cases in the state capital. In two of these cases, the high court has directed additional chief secretary (home) Sanjay Prasad to file personal affidavits and apprise the court of the status of the cases. In the most recent case of a missing person that reached high court after inaction by the Talkatora police, a 17-year old girl went missing from outside her residence in Saumya Vihar Colony under Talkatora police station on December 22, 2025. An FIR was lodged in this regard at the Talkatora police station, Lucknow, on December 26. Geeta Kumari, the girl's mother, suspects her neighbour's role in the incident. A Class IV employee of the Lucknow Municipal Corporation, 55-year-old Geeta Kumari, a widow, approached the high court after cops did little to trace her daughter. Geeta claims that her son and she approached the office of DCP (West) Vishwajeet Srivastava and additional DCP (West) Dhananjay Khushwaha for help, but to no avail. The family also claims to have approached the office of DIG (public grievance) and also lodged a complaint on the CM's portal. But all efforts went in vain. As a last resort, the mother-son duo approached the Allahabad high court's Lucknow bench lawyers Sandeep Yadav and Ajit Singh who filed a petition. A division bench of Justice Rajnish Kumar and Justice Zafeer Ahmad passed the order on a petition filed by Geeta Kumari on February 10 directing the investigating officer (IO) of the case to file a status report before it on the next hearing on February 23 and explain what steps have been taken to trace the minor. Noor Mohammad, 28, a resident of Thadi Alam, Rajajipuram, went missing on April 22, 2025. An FIR was lodged the next day with the Talkatora police station. "Noor went to drop his wife at the nearby beauty parlour where she worked in the morning on his motorcycle on that day. He has not returned since then," said advocate Rehan Mubassir, who is appearing in the high court on behalf of Moor's mother. A division bench of Justice Abdul Moin and Justice Babita Rani on February 12, 2026, directed the additional chief secretary (home) to file a personal affidavit informing about progress of the case. The court listed the case for next hearing on March 17, 2026. It was the missing case of 32-year-old MTech post graduate Ranjan Kumar that opened a Pandora's box. It was when Kumar's father, Dr Vikram Prasad, 68-year-old homoeopath, lost all hope and as a last resort approached high court after one-and-a-half years of the incident. Ranjan Kumar walked out of his home in Vikalp Khand, in Lucknow's Gomti Nagar, at around 6.30pm on July 15, 2024, but didn't return. Celebrations were underway in the house as Kumar's wedding was due within a fortnight. When he did not return home till late in the night, family members made frantic calls on his cell phone. But the phone was switched off. Later, the wedding was cancelled. Prasad lodged an FIR with the Chinhat police station on July 17, 2024. "For the next one-and-a-half years, Dr Vikram Prasad approached all senior police officials, including the police commissioner, but to no avail," said advocate Onkar Pandey, who is representing Dr Vikram Prasad in the high court. Investigations by the Lucknow Police till November 2025 could only lead to Kumar's cell phone. "A sweeper had found the cell phone in Gomti Nagar along the Gomti stretch in November 2024. It was switched off. However, when he switched on the cell phone, cops traced him through surveillance and recovered the cell phone on November 21, 2024," said advocate Pandey. Even cops took him to the spot from where he had found the cell phone, he added. Except this, there has been no headway in the investigation, Pandey said. The case came up for hearing before the division bench of Justice Abdul Moin and Justice Babita Rani on December 17, 2025. The court directed the commissioner of police, Lucknow, Amrendra Singh Sengar to file a personal affidavit informing about progress made in the case. On second hearing of the case on January 29, the court converted the writ petition of Dr Vikram Prasad suo motu into PIL as "In re-Missing persons in the State". The court also directed additional chief secretary (home) Sanjay Prasad to file a personal affidavit and inform about the number of complaints of missing persons lodged in the state from January 1, 2024, till date and how many of them have been traced. On February 5, 2026, the case came up for hearing before the court of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary. From the personal affidavit of the additional chief secretary (home), the court came to know that 1,08,300 missing persons complaints were registered from January 1, 2024, to January 18, 2026 across the state. Out of this, only 9700 persons could be traced. The court directed the state government to frame a standard operating procedure, if not already in place, to tackle such cases. The court also directed the additional chief secretary (home) and the director general of police to join court proceedings through video conferencing on the next date of hearing on March 23....