The Supreme Court on Friday sought response from the Centre, States and Union Territories on a petition alleging that over one lakh children have mysteriously disappeared from their homes across the country between 2008 and 2011.

A bench of justices Altamas Kabir and S S Nijjar also sought reply from the Attorney General G E Vahanvati on the PIL filed by an NGO, Bachpan Bachao Andolan.

Appearing for the NGO, senior counsel H S Phoolka and counsel Bhuwan Ribhu told the bench that as per official statistics about 1.17 lakh children are missing and are believed to have been subjected to trafficking for begging, prostitution and child labour.

The counsel submitted that on an average, every day 11 children are reported missing from different parts of the country and the police refuses to register FIR in most of the cases.