Date:02/01/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/01/02/stories/2007010203881200.htm

National

NCW member: police ignored complaints

Kannal Achuthan

30 children, women missing for the last two years

Chennai: The National Commission for Women brought the laxity of the Noida police to the attention of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav several months before the discovery of the serial killing of children in Noida, NCW Member Nirmala Venkatesh said.

Ms. Venkatesh, who was in Chennai on Monday, told The Hindu that in September 2005 an NCW team headed by her visited Nithari village, where six children were missing then. In the last two years, about 30 children and women have gone missing from Nithari village, adjacent to Noida.

The team found that police had neglected repeated complaints made by parents.

Ms. Venkatesh said that she wrote to Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav about the callousness of the Noida police but there was no reply. A second visit to Nithari by the NCW team, six months after the first, yielded no result. The police continued to ignore the appeals of the parents, many of whom were poor labourers, Ms. Venkatesh said.

"Had the police acted fast, the lives of so many children could have been saved. They told us the girls must have run away or eloped. We suspected trafficking. Do five and six-year-olds elope?" Ms. Venkatesh asked.

On December 29, Noida police dug up on the premises of a businessman's home skeletons and remains of children, who had been kidnapped, sexually abused and murdered. The police have found 15 skulls till now in the backyard of his home.