The Uttar Pradesh government decided to set up a special missing children's cell in every district after it received adverse publicity for its handling of the sensational Nithari serial killings case.

State Principal Secretary (Home) S K Agarwal has directed Director General of Police Bua Singh to set up the special cell in each of the 70 districts immediately.

According to the directive issued here, Agarwal said from now on cases of missing children will be registered as a 'special report' in a separate register. The proposed cells would be monitored by the SSP or SP of the district regularly.

Inspector General of Police (Crime) will head the state cell and will regularly monitor cases.

Under the new directive, an ASP rank officer would be deputed to head the special cell in every district and their effort will be to find out the missing children.

''The police team working in the case will also have to inform the parents of the missing children about their efforts in tracing their wards,'' police sources in Lucknow said.

The new directive comes after the state government ordered a CBI probe into the Nithari killings when two accused murdered more than 17 children and women in Noida.