Trace missing girl in two days, court tells police
By IANSWednesday, March 24, 2010
NEW DELHI - A city court Wednesday asked Delhi Police to trace a missing girl within two days after her mother alleged that her estranged husband had taken her away.
Metropolitan Magistrate Gaurav Rao said it amounted to “illegal confinement” and ordered Delhi Police to trace the three-year-old child by March 26. The court was hearing the plea of Avaneet Kaur, the child’s mother.
Kaur alleged that her husband Ravinder Singh took the child away without her knowledge or consent March 6 and was absconding since then.
Kaur married Singh Oct 17, 2004, but was living separately as she claims she was harassed in her husband’s home. In her plea, Kaur said she was forced to approach the court as the Nihal Vihar police station in northwest Delhi did not act on her complaint.
The court expressed its displeasure at the police over handling such sensitive issues in a careless manner.
I am constrained to observe that the Station House Officer (of the Nihal Vihar police station) concerned has disappointed the court by his careless approach to such a sensitive matter. Though the SHO claims that efforts were being made to trace the child, he admitted in the court that he had not even once bothered to obtain a photograph of the girl child, Rao said.
He said he failed to understand as to how the SHO planned to find the girl without a photograph to ascertain her identity.
“Taking into consideration the age of child, the kind of relation and maltreatment meted out to the mother and that the husband was not available at his residence, the act of the husband amounts to illegal confinement,” Rao said and issued a search warrant.
