In an incident that has raised fears of a Nithari repeat, six minors have gone missing from a colony in Anand Vihar in East Delhi.
In an incident that has raised fears of a Nithari repeat, six minors, including three girls, have gone missing from a colony in Anand Vihar in East Delhi.
While parents believe the children have been abducted by a flesh trade racket, police say four of the minors — two boys and two girls — are in “some relationship and may have eloped”.
They have registered two cases of kidnapping, but deputy commissioner of police (East Delhi) Anand Mohan suggested it could be a case of “mass elopement”.
The basis for the police theory is that all the missing children are from New Sanjay Nagar Colony and go to the same school, state-run Sarvodaya Vidyalaya in nearby Vishwas Nagar.
Police said the fact that the children went missing on the same day, February 10, after telling their parents they were going to school, gave credence to their suspicion.
But Sanjay Nagar residents are angry and believe the police are “cooking up theories to avoid responsibility”.
The residents claim this is not the first incident when children from the locality went missing. They say at least 26 kids have disappeared from the area in the last couple of years and police have refused to file ‘missing person’ complaints in most cases, a charge vehemently denied by the cops.
Shiv Bahadur Pandey, head of the residents association in the colony, alleged that when the six minors went missing on February 10, the cops initially filed a kidnapping case for only four on February 11 at Anand Vihar Police Station. A second FIR was registered on February 17 at Farsh Bazaar Police Station.
Local activist Ram Kumar Dhingra, who led a protest against the police inaction on Tuesday, said, “I have a list of about 20 children who have gone missing in the last few years. None of them has returned. Police have refused to act despite our repeated requests. The police haven’t even spoken to most parents whose kids have gone missing."
“We have approached the police and also written to the home ministry and the NHRC, but nothing significant has happened. Children are disappearing every month. We hope this isn’t a repeat of the Nithari case in Noida.”
There are families who have lost more than one kid. For instance, Saroj’s 16-year-old son went missing last December, while her daughter disappeared on February 10. “We have repeatedly requested the police to find our children, but all we have got are false assurances. We are beginning to lose hope,” she said.
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