Even the Uttar
Pradesh government’s own report finds Noida police officialdom
guilty of gross negligence and dereliction of duty, report Mihir
Srivastava and Sanjay Dubey
 |
Black-coat
fury: Pandher after he was attacked by lawyers and the public
at the Ghaziabad court
AP Photo |
| |
It
damns the police saying even in the cases of minors, FIRs were
not lodged when cases of kidnapping should have been registered
immediately |
A high-level two-member
inquiry committee constituted by the UP government to look into how
the police handled the complaints from parents of missing children,
found two Senior Superintendents of Police, Noida, RKS Rathore and Piyush
Mordia guilty of gross dereliction of duty.
The committee’s
conclusions were contained in its final report, which was submitted
to the government on January 5 by the two members — AC Sharma,
adg (Crime and Law and Order) and AK Sinha, UP Home Secretary. They
had submitted an interim report on January 3.
Compared to Mordia,
the final report is more severe in its indictment of Rathore. However,
while Mordia was suspended immediately after the interim report was
submitted, Rathore has not been suspended yet.
The report states:
“SSP RKS Rathore was unable to get Payal’s FIR registered
in time. The FIR was lodged on October 6 and contained the names of
both the men arrested by the police. It is only after this that the
facts of the case came out in the open… Had Rathore ordered the
registration of the FIR and arrested the duo, seven lives would have
been saved. Rathore’s gross folly reflects his negligence and
ineptitude. He is recommended for a major punishment.”
Citing the police’s
criminal indifference, the report says, “FIRs were not lodged
even in cases which involved minors. Such cases of kidnapping must be
immediately registered, as minors could not have given any legal consent.
Similarly, in the cases involving adults, FIRs were not registered even
after many days.”
The reasons why
the committee recommended punishment for Mordia and Rathore in its interim
and final reports are their inability to get the cases registered and
their failure to give necessary instructions to their juniors. In light
of this, the following observations in the report are pertinent:
The reports state
that after the recovery of human skeletons from D-5, Sector 31, in Noida
it became clear that the police had no information whatsoever about
five victims whose skeletal remains was found. The final report says,
“There is a strong possibility that the reports (about the missing
victims) were not lodged even after their kin had informed the police
that they were missing… This is a grave error and indicates how
this ps functioned.”
All senior officers
knew about the missing children because their parents were in
touch with them and Nithari was only two km away |
Four of these five
abductions occurred during Rathore’s tenure as SSP, Noida. Only
one case of not filing an FIR happened during Mordia’s tenure.
The report also states: “The yearly and half-yearly inspection
of the Sector 20 ps was done by RK Vishwakarma, DIG Meerut range; RKS
Rathore, SSP, Gautam Budh Nagar; Saumitra Yadav, SP City; and Sewak
Ram Yadav, CO. The SSP, SP City and circle officer also conducted surprise
inspections. They should have given the necessary instructions during
their inspections so that proper efforts could have been taken.”
The report’s
indictment of the police is forthright, “The police’s first
shortcoming was that instead of registering FIRs, only entries in the
(GD) General Diary were made. Second, the available details about the
missing children were not analysed properly and the investigation was
limited to prostitution and begging gangs. Third, in the case of Payal,
five months were lost before an FIR was lodged. Fourth, Moninder Pandher
was summoned to the ps earlier but he was not interrogated properly.
Fifth, the ps had no information at all about the five victims who were
missing. Sixth, by and large, the police officials did not show any
empathy with the victims.”
Rathore and Dinesh
Yadav, Circle Officer, Noida — both still in service — stand
guilty on all the six counts, whereas some of the suspended police officers
including Mordia are not guilty on all the counts. However, Rathore
is still in-charge of Noida police and the report gives Yadav only rap
in the knuckles after holding him responsible for serious lapses. The
report recommends minor punishment for him, saying that after the registration
of an FIR in Payal’s case, he worked with complete dedication.
Tehelka has evidence which shows Dinesh Yadav’s complicity in
covering up the crime and how he was virtually forced by the High Court
to finally solve the case.
Instead of the 12
cases of missing victims during Rathore’s tenure as SSP, Noida,
the report provides information on only 8 cases, whereas it correctly
provides information on all the 19 victims who went missing during Mordia’s
tenure. This indicates two possible scenarios — either at the
time of the committee’s inquiry on January 2-3, the police did
not know exactly how many went missing during Rathore’s tenure
or wrong information was provided to the committee, possibly to save
Rathore and Dinesh Yadav.
There is no mention
of Rathore or Yadav in the interim report, but it recommended action
against three senior police officers — Mordia, Saumitra Yadav
and SR Yadav, and six junior officers — Vinod Pandey, Rajiv Baliyan,
KP Singh, Simranjit Kaur who were in-charge of the police post —
and sos RN Yadav and Deepak Chaturvedi.
In the final report,
the committee also recommends milder action against some junior police
officials. The report also observes that there were several chowki in-charges
in Nithari, such as Chhote Singh, Yaad Ram Singh and Sati Chauhan who
were transferred within a month of taking charge, even though not a
single case of a missing person was reported during their tenure. However
Simranjit Singh, despite having been suspended several times earlier,
stayed on in the chowki for almost four months even after the skeletons
were found. Tehelka has proof that Sati Chauhan provided false evidence
to the court in Payal’s case, but this was not known to the committee
and hence does not find mention in the report.
It appears that
in the process of saving two senior police officers, Rathore and Yadav,
four junior officers — RN Parashar, Anuj Kumar, Kamal Singh Yadav
and VP Singh — also escaped punishment.
Severely indicting
the entire Noida police force, the committee observes, “The Sector
20 ps, and offices of the co, sp and SSP are within two kilometers of
Nithari. The relatives of the missing people were in constant touch
with all the officials. This means that right from the in-charge of
the police post to the senior officials, all were in the know of this
matter.”
The committee’s
report enumerates lapses before the Nithari case became a national sensation,
but the police’s inability to find at least 20 more skeletons
and missing torsos of the children from the drain behind house D-5,
Sector 31 requires another high-level inquiry.
