with the or to the Mumbai police

[utsavviradiya]

Just in case you don't know, Mumbai is a city located in India.

Which is the more natural and right English sentence?
A) He filed a missing complaint with the Mumbai police.
B) He filed a missing complaint to the Mumbai police.

Similarly, Which is the more natural and right English sentence?
C) He filed a missing complaint with the Mumbai police station.
D) He filed a missing complaint at the Mumbai police station.

 

[Barque]

They'd all work in India but none of them sound natural.

He filed a "missing person" report with the Mumbai police.
He filed a "missing person" report at a Mumbai police station.

Note the use of quotation marks.

 

[5jj]

Note the use of quotation marks.

They are unnecessary in the UK.

 

[Barque]

On second thought, I think I agree.

 

[emsr2d2]

Also, even if we're reporting only one person missing, we call it a missing persons report.

 

[utsavviradiya]

They'd all work in India but none of them sound natural.

He filed a "missing person" report with the Mumbai police.
He filed a "missing person" report at a Mumbai police station.

Note the use of quotation marks.

You said they'd all work in India, but here is the screenshot of the article from BBC that used the term "missing complaint", not "missing persons report".

The article can be found here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63632513

 

[jutfrank]

Regarding A and B, as far as preposition use goes, you need with:

file a complaint with + [organisation whose responsibility is to process it]

In C and D, the Mumbai police station is the place where the complaint was made, so at is the appropriate preposition to use.


(The BBC News example (he filed a missing complaint) sounds wrong to me.)

 

[Barque]

You said they'd all work in India, but here is the screenshot of the article from BBC that used the term "missing complaint", not "missing persons report".

The article can be found here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63632513

View attachment 5043

So? That article uses the same words that I said would be used in India.

You haven't understood my last post. I acknowledged in it that the word "complaint" is used in India.

Are you reading your answers?

 

[emsr2d2]

They'd all work in India ...

Using "missing complaint" clearly sounded OK to you or you wouldn't have used it in post #1. Barque then confirmed that it's OK in India. The BBC link you provided is specifically from their Asia>India sub-section so they almost certainly made sure they used language that is appropriate for that audience. Clearly, whoever wrote it (there is no named author on that story) knew that that phrase would be acceptable to the readers in India and/or of Indian origin.

 

[Tdol]

Here's a BBC article about missing persons in London:

How the Met Police deals with London's missing person reports

The missing persons specialists at the Met Police deal with thousands of cases a year. How do they prioritise them?

www.bbc.com

They use missing person report, though I would use persons like emsr2d2.