About 3,000 girls are reportedly missing in the impoverished central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, apparently due to human trafficking, reported the semi-official Press Trust of India on Sunday.

These missing girls are counted out of 5,000 people missing in the state, according to the report.

The reported quoted a non-government organization based in Jashpur, Chhattisgarh, as saying that some recruitment agencies are behind this racket as they lure women with good job prospects but after some days these women go missing.

These agencies bungle half the money promised to the women to work as domestic servants and often subject them to physical and mental torture, said the report.

Such agencies in Mumbai and Delhi always have religious names to convince parents to send their girls to the cities from poor villages.

Police are taking action against all such recruitment agencies with the help of non-government organizations, according to the report.

(Xinhua News Agency July 6, 2009)