Five Year old raped in Delhi... - Page 5

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police may not have been able to prevent the rape of the 5-year-old girl, but if they had reacted to the missing complaint with a sense of urgency, she could have been spared a lot of trauma. However, as is well known, children often go missing in the city - particularly in the less affluent neighbourhoods of the city - and the police give little priority to such complaints.

The lapses in this case are typical of the police response. Questions are been raised about how the Gandhi Nagar police kept the hapless family waiting at the police station for six hours before they finally lodged a case of kidnapping on April 15. The child had gone missing the earlier evening. But more importantly, as the protestersoutside Sant Dayanand Hospital in east Delhi pointed out, no one from the police station bothered to go to the house of the girl and check out her neighbours. The locked room on the ground floor where the girl was kept captive could have easily aroused the suspicion of the investigators.

The family of the five-year-old child has, however, made more grave charges. They alleged on Friday that the cops had offered them Rs 2,000 to hush up the case and made insensitive remarks. The police said a separate inquiry in this matter has been ordered by the police headquarters and that a special CP will be preparing the final report.

The victim's father has also alleged that the police had refused to register a rape case after she was rescued. He was turned away from the police station, he has said. "The police told me to be happy that she was alive," he claimed. "On Thursday night, a policeman came to my house and asked me to come out. He told me nothing will be gained by involving the public. He told me that you should take care of the child and be with her. He told me that people cannot help me before handing me Rs 2,000. He said I should cover my expenses with this," he has alleged

The cops are claiming they had lodged the case at the earliest and that a local search was completed. "I cannot vouch for whether we had gone to every door in the locality but we did complete a local search on April 15, the day we received the complaint," said Asif Mohammad, additional DCP (East). "There was no delay in registering a case. As far as the delay about a photo is concerned, we cannot possibly search for the child without a photo. We had put up a photograph on ZIPNET too, according to the procedure."

NGOs who have been highlighting the cause of missing children say the Gandhi Nagar police was not alone in trying to brush the case under the carpet. "The truth is that the family is first asked to search for the child for several days. Parents are asked to bring a photograph of the child. Being poor, most of the families do not have a photograph. Once they do get one, they ask for more copies. After the family does all this, it keeps visiting the police again and again hoping that they may get to know something about their child. However, at the police station, they are told to return at a later date since the investigating officer is either in court or busy with another case," said a child counsellor who did not wish to be named.

Though the district investigation units and the crime branch perform a shade better, there is rarely a response the police in the first 12 hours, the most crucial period for a probe. And then one has to deal with stereotyping, prejudice and plain stupidity too. "Any missing case involving a girl above the age of 11 is treated as elopement and the police ask parents to find out about the boys in the neighbourhood who might be missing too," says counsellor.

According to Bachhpan Bachao Andolan, an NGO working for child rights, five girls are missing from the Gandhi Nagar police station area at this moment. This includes a two-year-old girl who has been missing since February 18. In all, 78 children are missing from east Delhi district, the third highest among all districts of Delhi. In the first spot is Southeast district followed by Outer district.

The police, however, claim they have traced over 3328 children this year and just 608 remain untraced. "A child welfare committee team came to the Gandhi Nagar police station and checked every record related to the case. They returned satisfied. So where did we make a mistake," asked a senior officer at the police headquarters.

That is no consolation for the girl's mother who says her daughter was kidnapped when she had just gone out to play. "The man then locked her up in his room and raped her. I want justice from the government," she said.

Thoughts and prayers with the girl. Hope she recovers from all this and leads a normal life afterwards..

😡