The abduction of children from India's extensive railway network has been a chronic sensitive issue, showing little sign of receding in recent years, the Guardian reported on Sunday.

The number of children abducted from the Kolkata's Sealdah railway station in eastern India, one of the busiest railway stations in India, was the highest nationwide, which was rising from 15,284 in 2011 to 41,893 in 2015, according to the latest police statistics, said the Guardian.

Thousands of Indian children went to the Sealdah railway station and considered it as a shelter due to poverty or family violence. However, after living here for months, some of them vanished for uncertain reasons.

It was estimated by Save the Children India, a child-welfare center in Kolkata, that about one-fourth of the homeless children were actually abducted and trafficked into the sex trade or child labor, according to the Guardian.

India also leads the tally for international child abductions. In spite of massive protests and anti-abduction laws in India, the cases of children abduction continue to be reported across India.

Between June 2016 and last May, a total of 1,628 missing children has been retrieved from the Sealdah railway station. Of these, 134 were girls and the youngest one was four years old, the Guardian reported.